Perhaps we had exceptionally good weather in 1968. For I have only happy, pleasant memories of walking to and from kindergarten with my best friend, Barbie. There was an occurrence, only one I swear, when it became necessary for me to attend kindergarten wearing ankle socks. I found this to be a tremendous outrage and attempted to hide behind the tree all morning. I had hoped to remain there until Barbie came home from school and I could return home as if I had actually attended. Unfortunately, it was garbage day and when Barbie’s mother came out to put out the trash, I was discovered. Amazingly, my mom was right, none of the other kids cared about my socks. Go figure. Let it be noted though, the weather was fine and allowed me to be truant in comfort.

1969 proved to be a very different year in regards to the weather, at least to this six year old child. We, my three older sisters and one older brother and I, (I had graduated to first grade and I attended with the ‘older kids’ now) would walk to school in the rain, in the snow and of course in the sleet.

It was approximately a mile walk along a rather busy street. We were safe on the sidewalk, and I am sure I was always trailing behind the older kids. We would leave the house in the rain, while motorists who had left home much earlier rushed to their jobs on those cold and dreary mornings. Those motorists, safe and dry in their cars, would drive by the group of 5 children trudging to school, both parties unaware of the potholes that plagued the Hartford avenues at that time. Until, of course, the fateful moment when all three came together, splashing us to kingdom come. We were completely soaked, because along that busy street there wasn’t just one pothole, there were many. Very many. We arrived to school tardy, wet, and cold.

Walking to school was as regular as eating, you did it; your siblings did it; your parents had done it; their parents before them had done it. In order to get to school you had to walk. Bad weather or good you still had to be there on time or face the principal. You didn’t complain about it, you just did it.

Of course along with the bad weather there was the glorious. There is awesome beauty in seeing first snowflake begin to fall; witnessing spring flowers on the way home, that were not there on the way to school; and seeing the leaves change color and fall to the ground.

There was more to “walking to school” than the weather. It was the independence of the whole thing. It took 20 minutes on a good day, 30 in bad, 12 minutes if you took your bike, add an extra 2 or 3 if you had to carry an instrument or school project. You were responsible for getting to school on time. On the good weather days, on your walk home you might find Mrs. Casey out front in her yard and it would be nice to talk with her. If you saved a quarter you could stop at Lil’ Peach on your way home and pick up some candy. You might go with best friend Robin LaCroix over to Ken’s Meat Market to pick up some bones for her dog. It wasn’t quite as good as Tom Sawyer, but it was pretty close.

There was also the variable of the route. Generally we traveled down Irving to Curve, to Exchange St over the tracks to behind the Police Station. But if you were running late you could travel down Daniels St , to the tracks, following the tracks to the bridge and climbing up the embankment to Exchange St . That route might save a minute or two; but parents generally, if they knew about it, warned against it.

The reality was that you alone were responsible for the whole thing; the route, the schedule, the time, the belongings.

Our children are home schooled, and we live in a completely different geographic area than where my husband and I grew up. It doesn’t rain very often, and it never rains for a full day. So even walking to school would not give our children the weather conditions we had to endure back then. I do not even know if societal conditions today allow schoolchildren the level of freedom and responsibility we had then.

I would not give up homeschooling, for it has hundreds of other benefits. But if I could provide one aspect of schooling that homeschooling cannot provide it would be the daily ritual of the “walk to school” that existed between 1968 – 1981, in New England .