Coweta County Georgia First Day of School, August 6, 2008. My summer vacation recollections. (Things have changed since I was a kid!)

Richard:  It was absolutely a simpler and more innocent time.  Kids could be kids.  There was nothing for parents to fear to have the kids out roaming the woods all day.  I long for those days, but alas, I fear they are gone forever.  Thanks for taking me back there in memory!

Richard -- August 6th?  Wowswers, thats early.  We are stull on the mid-june and labor day schedules up here.

Richard,

I remember those early June to post-Labor Day summer vacations from school also. I also remember no air conditioning and sitting there stuck to your seat. I also remember taking an elective summer school class in high school where it was just too hot to finish the entire session so we would often get dismissed early.

Steve

Kids are just not the same.  Modern technology keeps them from doing a lot of the things we did.  My children are teens now but still enjoy swimming with friends.  I do not think either of them know what it is like to scrape black tar off the bottom of your feet before you go to bed!

Richard - I am not sure what caused so many school districts to return early, it just doesn't make sense to me. I refuse to admit to listening to Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five.

For awhile my kids were in year round school, they lived and we loved it. What flexibility on vacation schedules and less loss of learning between sessions.

School time already?  Yowsers!

That is an early start, but if it works.

For me, summer vac was baseball, baseball, baseball.  when I was 10, 11 and 12.

13+ it was, plow the field, disk, plant , cultivate, bale the hay...ect.  These were in all reality, the best years of my childhood.  It prepared me well for the future i had to endure!

Richard, it sure is a different day and age.  Out here in Arizona, the shorter summers make sense but the days of playing outside and "exploring" are long gone.  Great reminder post though.

Going to the local swimming pool or just spending time with friends until dinner, no cell phones, no fears!  We were able to go and do just let the parents know who we were with and where we were going.  Popping in with Johnnie and asking if he could eat dinner with us.

OMG, Those were the days that kids will never be able to enjoy.

Don R.

Richard, school starts here the day after Labor Day. My daughter and I were shopping the other day and picked up a supply list. She is excited for school to start this year because she will be in 7th grade. Mixed classes and all. And she auditioned for choir and made it! So she can't wait.

The 6th?  Wow.  Chalk that up to one more reason I wouldn't want to be a kid today.  Man, those lazy days of summer were the stuff of legends.  I spent many a summer day with a group of friends hanging out at the river... trapsing through the woods.  We had horses as a kid and we spent a lot of time riding through the woods for hours on end.  The area I grew up in is still relatively rural but all that feels like a million years ago... then again, it darn near was.

I hadn't thought about it Richard.  You may be onto something here!

I for one am glad that things are the way they are. I do not have children at the moment, but this new way of doing things means that I won't have to put up with them as long for the Summer as my mother had to put up with me.

Too late for her, but I will gladly reap the rewards for her hard work.

I cannot imagine being back in school so early in August, that is still Summer as far as i'm concerned.  I like the way it was for me in Jamaica.  School went until end of June, we didn't go back until September and we had 3 week breaks around Christmas and Easter.