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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, AuguST 31, 2019
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Jonathan Williams
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DailyAstorian
Photos by Ron Baldwin
Astoria High School football players practice their paces in one of the first practices of the new season led by head coach Howard Rub.
A NEW YEAR ON THE HORIZON
By RON BALDWIN
B
ack to school — Just that phrase
can trigger an emotional torrent
in kids, parents, grandparents,
teachers, maintenance and service staff
— nearly every person connected to the
school system in any way. With all the
changes in our schools in America in the
last half-century, one thing remains con-
stant: the anxiety, thrill and dread that
becomes evident in a sizable portion of
the population upon exposure to those
words.
Around the first of August or even
sooner the print ads start. Meanwhile
television, radio and online ad campaigns
have already been in action for weeks
revving up demand for new designs and
trends. The online onslaught has been in
gear all year, it’s just that now the focus
becomes back to school.
Back-to-school shopping behavior
seems to be split along gender lines. The
girls are happy to go out with mom and
shop for the latest trends and are happy to
wear them to school on the first day. Still,
disagreements can persist.
“Just decide already.”
After the age of about 7, boys will
never be caught shopping with mom
without being hog-tied.
“These shorts and T-shirt I’ve been
wearing all summer will do fine until the
snow flies.”
One can clearly see why some moms
celebrate on the first day of school. Most
moms work, so child care concerns and
costs go down. Grandmas have their sum-
mers filled with energetic grandkids, and,
for them, now is the time to crank up the
camper and hit the road.
Jesse Strauch, Astoria High School’s new marching band director, calls out the formations for his students in their first practice of the
year with no instruments.
the smells of blackberry, cedar, alder and
fir drifts in and out of the window until
school is out. This routine continues until
the rains resume, everyone has a cold and
no one can smell anything.
Sultry September days
Gearing up on the field
In late August, we begin to see the
sports teams on the athletic fields. The
students who participate in fall sports
have already gone through some training
exercises by the time school starts. Many
have done some physical training on their
own. Parents and students have filled out
a seemingly unending number of forms.
The teams are ready to go onto the field
and accept the rah-rah-rahs of their peers,
defend the goal and the honor of the mas-
cot that inhabits their shirts and hats.
“Fight, fight, fight for victory.”
They call it school spirit. For some, it
comes naturally. For others, it can be elu-
sive, like all spirits.
Learning on the bus
Even though there is a growing num-
ber of students of all grades that depend on
parent drop-off, rural and city school dis-
tricts alike still depend on a fleet of buses
to transport students safely to school.
A cadre of classified employees is
needed to maintain, clean and drive those
yellow behemoths. But it appears there
is a dearth of school bus drivers in the
Northwest. If you travel, you may have
seen the banners on the buses along the
road: “School bus drivers wanted.”
It seems like every district is begging
for drivers. One explanation for this phe-
nomenon is the economy. When employ-
ment is high and wages are rising, cur-
rent and potential employees are tempted
to go to higher wage jobs and the driving
jobs go wanting.
It’s primarily moving kids to school,
Jon Fay, an Astoria School District employee, mows the field at the Astoria High School
track with Saddle Mountain in the distance. Local school workers are busy prepping the
grounds and classroom before school starts Tuesday.
but the bus is also where students learn.
Part of our social-interaction behavior
is learned on those early morning and
midafternoon rides. On the first days of
school the pecking order is established
but the whims of fortune sometimes
change, and new friendships can develop
throughout the year.
Smells of school
One thing I remember about my first
days of school are the smells. For the
lack of a better term, I’ll call them smell
prints. Scientists say that smells can trig-
ger emotions and memories quicker and
more certainly than other senses.
Waiting for the morning school bus on
the side of the road near Northwest riv-
ers has a smell print all its own. It’s the
flowery, grassy, dewy, sunny, foggy smell
that every school bus rider knows but can
never name. At school, with all the buses
together, that smell is mingled with diesel
smoke, creating a new smell print. Enter
the school doors and the cleaning prod-
uct odors hit the nose for an entirely new
smell print. Somewhere between 10 and
10:30 a.m. the cafeteria begins to churn
up new smells that make students’ stom-
achs growl. Then on to lunch and after,
Teachers now develop that “here we
go again” mindset as administrators
develop new policies for the year and
maintenance personnel scurry around fix-
ing, fussing and cleaning. The last-min-
ute touches are being applied to seasonal
construction projects. Students are say-
ing goodbye to summer friends, the last
excursions to the beach are coming to an
end. The populace is getting ready to set-
tle down into a routine. The only thing is,
that never really happens until about the
end of November.
The fact that school begins in our best
weather kind of works against students
when it comes to staying alert in the warm
afternoons of our balmy Septembers. The
first days of my sophomore year were a
good example. Our civics teacher Hollis
“Bullet” Beasley was a great mind and
scholar, but his voice was dull and bor-
ing. Coalesce that with the fact that civ-
ics was scheduled directly after lunch on
75-degree days with no air conditioning
and the direct result is the entire class falls
asleep, even the nerds. The Bullet, as the
boys called him behind his back, was pre-
pared to make an example. And I was his
target. The scenario went something like
this:
TB: “Mr. Baldwin?”
Me: “Mhuh”
TB: “Mr. Baldwin, will you please
give us a definition of the economic con-
cept “laissez faire?”
Me: “Um, er, I didn’t read the …”
TB, interrupting: “No Mr. Baldwin, it
does not mean that you are lazy, and I am
fair, even though it is most certainly so.”
Whole class, now wide awake:
“ahahahahahahaha.”
Ron Baldwin is a musician, photog-
rapher and writer living in Chinook,
Washington.