A New Season Upon Us

When I see the rows of bright yellow school buses in military formation waiting to pick up and deliver young passengers, I know we are in a new season. A page has been turned, like the leaves that will soon turn their fall colors of burnt orange, sienna and gold. The buses look like giant bugs with their black windscreen eyes.

I never took the bus; I took the subway during my four years at Girls’ High. The exception being when I sprained my ankle playing basketball, and my friend Liz drove me to and from school.

My first day going to Girls’ High, I was excited as I skipped down the subway steps. I needed more than my navy knee socks to hold me up, as I slipped and fell, lickety-split, down the steep concrete steps. I dusted myself off, with only a skinned knee for my troubles.

Girls’ High opened up my narrow world of South Philly to include the rest of the city and the rest of the world. It was the opposite of my insular Italian neighborhood and upbringing. The students were of all ethnicities and religions, even Quakers. One of the girl’s fathers was Edmund Bacon, a Quaker and legendary city planner responsible for the gentrification of Society Hill in Philadelphia. My husband and I got married in Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Society Hill. The parishioners there supported the American revolutionaries.

The Jewish girls had elaborate “Sweet Sixteen” parties that were more extravagant than any wedding I had ever seen. My birthday parties were always aunts and uncles and other relatives, no friends. But an Italian cream birthday cake made up for the lack of friends.

Girls’ High had an orchestra, where I first hear Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” There were lots of sports to choose from.

I signed up for cheerleading in my first year, because I thought we would be cheering on the sports teams of the neighboring boys high school, Central. When I found out no boys were involved, I went out for field hockey, basketball and gymnastics. I was a successful athlete and loved my sports. I also loved the orange slices we enjoyed at halftime at basketball games.

Even before high school, in elementary school, I practiced tennis against the wall of Jackson Elementary School, and I remember I had a skate key to tighten my skates. We skated like roller demons obsessed with speed and fluidity on the smooth asphalt in the little side street with no traffic.

I joined the French Club and attended concerts, lectures and poetry readings at the Alliance Francaise in center city. The rich, creamy hot chocolate they served, along with crispy, buttery cookies, kept me coming back.

The fall season is about school supplies, freshly sharpened pencils, juicy markers, colorful backpacks and new sneakers. And now, for some lucky kids, new iPads or laptops. And the smell of fresh ink in textbooks for math, science and foreign language study.

I remember the black-and-white composition books with the swirly pattern on the cover that matched my new black-and-white saddle shoes. Sneakers were allowed only for gym, and they were Keds, either blue or red. No fancy Nikes with arch support and scientifically engineered comfort and performance.

After school, a couple of friends and I would go to have a black-and-white ice cream soda to soothe out our strenuous academic day. I can still taste the deliciousness of the vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.

Like any high school, there were cliques — the jocks, and the brains, and the popular girls. With not much overlap on groups and affinities.

Our lives were ruled by the academic year schedule. And even as adults, a part of us has a back-to-school mentality of hope and expectation, of learning something new, especially after our COVID year and a half of at-home schooling.

My 9-year-old grandson, Cormac, in California is playing soccer in a league and rock climbing at the local Rocknasium. Hopefully, the kids will be vaccinated this fall and wear their masks for everyone’s sake and get tested weekly. If the kids can stay in school then their parents can continue to work.

Fall means “Tumbleweed Tuesday,’ the day after Labor Day, when all the city folk go back to their private schools. More folks are staying here year round, but the peace and quiet is still palpable with, hopefully, less traffic and congestion. I feel as if we can breathe again.

Apple picking at Halsey’s in Water Mill and apple cider donuts at the Milk Pail complete our annual fall activities, along with pumpkin picking at Hank’s, with roasted corn and climbing on the wooden structures. Halloween, with its candy corn, witches, ghosts and goblins.

It gets dark earlier, so soups are on the menu. Corn chowder made with corn saved from leftover corn from Mrs. Halsey’s is a rich treat and a hearty dinner along with salad and crusty French bread.

Before leaf blowers, we used to rake our own leaves into mountainous piles, and the kids would jump in them screaming and squealing, joined by the family dog.

Autumn is the season that makes me feel most alive, even though the leaves are falling and dying. But what a showy send-off when the leaves surround a tree on the ground, a mirror image of its colorful glory reflecting Rembrandt’s palette.

And the geese honk their noisy goodbyes.