photo by Elizabeth Festa
This is a quickie. It takes such a short amount of time, I don’t think of it. It is over before you know it, and yet it is something you remember forever (or I do). So, it is something many of us take for granted — walking to school.
The Hill’s neighborhood elementary schools take in-bounds and out-of-bounds students, of course, but many families live close enough in our dense community to walk with their pint-sized charges, or escort them as they bike, scoot, swoop, run or even swing from vines and branches to get there (as my active son seems to to do — his feet are only on the sidewalk proper less than 50% of the time, so not sure if I would classify him as a walk-to-schooler.
Of course, it sure is nice that parents get to tumble out of the door and stretch their pre-arthritic joints the few blocks to the school door and catch up with fellow parents on homework, class dynamics, PTA intrigues, or get-togethers, but it is the kids, some of whom know nothing else, who are truly taking this for granted.
They get to jump, stomp, shuffle, skip, pick flowers for teachers (sorry, A Street NE), run after butterflies, turn over stones, jump off embankments, throw snowballs, slide sticks through the dirt, bang sticks along fences (sorry, 13th Street NE), leap to avoid dog poop (early football obstacle course training), shout to friends, hide in trees and shake wet branches on their sisters, all this instead of be strapped into a carseat before 9 AM listening to WTOP’s traffic report, NPR’s flatly toned instructions for enlightenment, Glenn Beck’s rants, strains of Wheels on the Bus (which you never hear on a bus) or an unholy amalgamation of all of these, punctuated with offhand curses of the safe but tense driver, and honking horns, and idling motors.
“If I had to drive to school,” says one of my favorite Mom pals, “I would miss the conversations that we have. In the mornings, we talk about nature, the kids ask questions, or we talk about what specials they have that day. Same with the way home — who did they sit by at lunch? Who did they play with at recess? We see if the spider that we saw in the morning is still there. Not that you can’t talk in the car, but walking is far better for conversation.” Thanks, H!
Bussing is a good thing, and it has integrated schools, and diversified community schools, and brought those who need education to places of that educate them, so it is a great force in our society, but those that can walk to a school of their choice should really do what all people who take things for granted do. Look puzzled now when told of it, recall it whistfully, years later,when they realize how lucky they were. But, shh! Don’t tell them now. They are looking at a spider.
