BACK TO SCHOOL

Is it just me, or is Summer a lot shorter than it used to be? It doesn't seem like it was anytime at all that the kids were getting out of school for the year, and football season and the changing of the leaves seemed so far away.

I guess it's true that as you get older, time flies by. Still, I'm just a little bit shocked at how many "Back To School" displays you see when you enter a store. Can it really be that time again?

As our kids prepare for another year in the classroom, I think back to August 1980. While America was wondering who shot J.R.,and how badly Reagan would defeat Carter in November...I was getting ready to start first grade at Burns Elementary School.

I can't say that I remember too many intimate details about that day, except at one point my mother left....and I cried a lot. After all, my days were filled with Match Game and Woody Woodpecker before that, and I didn't really want my routine disrupted ...regardless of what the law said.

As my tears reached a dramatic crescendo (two words I had no idea to the definition of back then), I do remember Laverne Fisher, my first-grade teacher, telling me "If you keep crying, I'm going to start crying too." Well, who wanted to make a teacher cry? So, my tears started to slow down, and truth be told....I actually started to enjoy school.

Burns Elementary School was a magical place back in those days......except for one thing---the hallways. The hallways in the main part of that school were so tall and so wide...or at least it seemed that way when one was six years old. Still, some of the best memories and best teachers I ever had was in that old school building. There was a gym teacher there who would fire up the old popcorn machine on Friday afternoons from time to time. (That same gym teacher has been my football broadcasting partner since 1996, and also a great friend). There was my first crush--a girl named Heather, and there were teachers and principals who influenced my life in so many ways, Even prayer.....My second grade teacher, and one of my favorites still, Joan Atkeison, would lead us in the Lord's Prayer each day before lunch. (Can you imagine that today?),,,,,,And lunch....Well, even though the "Pizza Burgers" they made in the cafeteria weren't that great...Nobody, (Dickson, Charlotte, and White Bluff--that means you) made a bowl of chili better than Burns Elementary. Then, there was the fall festival. My brother Randall and I spent many a quarter on the grab boxes....even though the only thing I remember getting that got us too excited was a Bank Of Dickson cap.....Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts on recollections....Got to get a Trapper Keeper? Who sells those anymore????