(Take Me) Back to School!

I wish I was going back to school.

My kids are facing their return to school this week with the same mix of excitement and dread that my friends and I did each September, when we returned to St. Cyprian School in the early 1960s.

I can still relate to the excitement, but after decades in the working world, I look back now and see how misplaced the dread was then – and is now for my kids. St Cyprian, like all the schools Downriver, was full of caring people (in our case, mostly Sisters of the IHM Order) who dedicated their lives to making certain we were successful – in school, and later in life.

My kids – all our kids – are returning to that same sort of environment today. And they’re surrounded by good friends who will share with them the challenges of conquering math and completing homework assignments.

Back in the fall of 1964, I knew that Joe and Neven, Larry, Mark, Johnny, Eric and all the guys had my back in Arithmetic, in Science class, in Religion class and on the playground. It didn’t stay that way in the decades ahead, when we all grew up and many of us went our separate ways. At work, co-workers will abandon you in a heartbeat to save their own positions.

Study hard, finish your work, and get good grades. That was the simple equation for success at St. Cyprian. In the working world, we all learned it’s work hard, do your best, and get laid off because the PAT isn’t sufficient to satisfy the Board of Directors and the shareholders.

Back to school this week? I’d love to be there! Back to work tomorrow? I feel a stomach ache coming on …