august is still a summer month!

Where has the summer gone!? It is already mid July, just over a month before school starts, yep school starts. Can you believe it? I remember, as a kid, not going back to school until AFTER Labor Day. This always gave us time to travel from Florida to Colorado (in an car; half the time with no air), to spend with extended family.

about 1972 with my mom, two little sister's and my grandparents between Pueblo and Colorado Springs; on Skyline Drive.

I was born August 17th, and I NEVER went to school on my birthday. Today, people look at August as a fall month and schools start on or around that day. 


surfing at Cocoa Beach, FL

August is a summer month. One that should be filled with the sound of children playing at the neighborhood pool or at the beach. The fragrance of suntan lotion and swimming pool chlorine should be in the air. Sunglasses and sunscreen should be adorning our bodies. Instead, the children are in their classrooms with the smell of new textbooks, paper and pencils. With their eyes glued to the teacher and the blackboard, and their little fingers copying notes to take home and study that evening.  No summer fun music to fill the air, instead, just the voice of a lecturing instructor. 


Cocoa Beach, FL

Seems like school starts earlier and earlier each year. This year the kids go back August 7 in our district. They say, they need to study more so the children can do better on the test scores. REALLY!?  Seems ever since they started testing the kids, they have been doing worse and worse in school. Do you really think having them in school more hours, more days, will improve test scores. I don't. 

Don't get me wrong, children DO need to be in school, we all need to get as much education as possible. But we also need breaks. We need family time. I can remember as a child, all the kids outside playing, riding their bikes around the block. Today, how many children do you see outside.  

Just the other day we had  beautiful weather, temperatures in the mid 80's sun shining, perfect to be outside (I would have been out there if it weren't for my 102 fever). Do you know how many people I saw outside yesterday...? ZERO, NADA. Yep, no one was outside (and I looked). Instead they were either in their homes playing video games or in daycare. Hmmm, daycare. I never knew anyone that went to daycare when I was growing up; and no we were not rich...by a loooong shot. Back then, moms stayed home, but I'm not going to step on any toes with that one. That is a whole other thought.  

Back to the subject at hand, school starting way too early, and August becoming a fall month. In my book August will always be that month that had the beach ball, sand pails and shovels, or toes in the sand and umbrellas and beach chairs on the calendar page. It was and will always be the month of the beach, the end of summer, not the beginning of fall...