Backtoschool Stories

Thurman appeared to me on a Tuesday, in a wall tile of my newly renovated bathroom. It was a little after six P.M. and I was drawing a hot bath. I perched on the edge of the tub and waited for the water to reach that perfect temperature. I was tired. Worn out. Exhausted. My day had started just like any other day. Alarm at five A.M. got dressed in the dark, scurried out the door by five-thirty-five to open the cafe by six...

“Morrison!” “Yes, Sister?” “Your skirt is too short. Kneel on the desk!” Sister Bernadette, The Carmelite Nun who was head of discipline and religious studies for the girls of St. Mary Magdalene Roman Catholic High School, tapped the desk in front of me with her wooden ruler. Obediently, I climbed onto my chair and knelt upon the flat wooden surface of the desk as commanded. Without another word she set the end of the rul...

The very first day their new grade school teacher told them they were going to be learning to write letters. That was the start of their school year there at the elementary school out in the desert of Southern California.  It was August and still summer. The sun is never, hardly ever, covered by clouds. So hot most of the year. That didn't bother the kids. But now there was no more vacation. No more playing out on the dry...

At our local swimming pool, you can clearly perceive the pattern of the school year, especially during the holidays. It gets markedly busier at half terms and the Easter break and even at Christmas (if parents really don’t know what to do with their children on a bad day weather-wise, having steadily worked through all the seasonal movies in the nearby multiplex)! These are brief flurries of activity, but the long summer...

  High school is starting and I should be so excited.  I am going to high school and my expectations are over the moon.  Maybe just a little nervous ‘cause there will be so many students and teachers there I haven’t met.  I don't know if any of my friends will be in my classes. Makes me nervous to have all new people.It still feels warm, but knowing the cooler autumn weather is just around the corner, I have several sweat...

Click-kuck Back-to-school 1st grade: A 6-year-old boy sitting on a desk. His shoes made of raggedy torn canvas as most play shoes were back then. Indiana snow shin-deep walking to school. A teacher calling him to the front of the class. Everyone laughing as she removed his wet shoes and socks and rubbed his feet to get them warm. He felt so ashamed and hated her that day. Only many years later did he understand the immens...

Left, right, left, right… keep going, keep breathing. Her chest burned, rasping breaths tearing her parched throat. Still, she battled on. Left, right, left, right… Pumping dance music pounded her ears but she’d long since abandoned keeping time to the beat. Now, it was merely a distraction, a way to drown out slap of feet on the tarmac and the racing thump of her bursting heart. “Must keep going,” she muttered, gasping....