CLOSING
THOUGHTS
OBITUARIES
– MAY THEIR MEMORIES BE A BLESSING
Louisa!
AUGUST 21 ▪ 2015
A
AJT
38
s another school year begins,
once again I must adjust my
body clock.
When I went to school, Labor
Day marked the beginning of a new
school year. The school year always
ended on my birthday. I’ve lived in the
South more than three-quarters of my
life, yet my body clock still anticipates
these start and end dates. It’s
positively exhausting.
My elementary school
was directly across the street
from our apartment building. No grass, but a huge
schoolyard. The lunchroom
was in the basement with
bars on the windows. At that
young age, it never crossed our minds
to question what those bars were for.
My high school boasted a winning basketball team and a champion
cheering squad; lest we forget, we
proudly hosted the Fordham Baldies
and the Fordham Baldettes. Of course,
it goes without saying we were very
proud of Beta Club, math and science
clubs, and our G.O. (government organization). Note the order of what made
us feel proud!
We had periodic lockdowns when
rival gangs to the Baldies would try to
invade our space. Zip guns were all the
rage.
But enough about me!
The elementary school my girls
attended had a beautiful lake where
ducks and swans were in abundance.
Tie-dye peace signs were all the rage.
The giant old trees were for shade and
for climbing. The garden produced
flowers and vegetables. The main
classroom building was shaped like a
giant dome.
The teachers loved and respected
their students. They learned reading,
writing and arithmetic. More important, they learned, by example and
discussion, how to treat others. They
learned about their immediate world
and the world beyond their neighborhoods.
After moving to Atlanta, I felt as if
their education was a bit one-dimensional. One Sunday morning I was
reading the newspaper and drinking
my coffee when I spotted an ad about
the wonderful experiences families
have had in bringing foreign exchange
students into their homes.
And so began our journey learning about the world up close and
personal. We shared our home with
students from France, Germany, Spain,
the Netherlands, Israel and more. They
became immersed in the American
school system and were rocked by how
much Ameri