This will be “back-to-school” shopping week for many families. What memories that brings to mind. With five children in five age groups, that was always a challenge and a nightmare!

In later years we spent the end of each summer in Vermont where school shopping was much better than the crush of crowded stores and frenzied sales clerks back home. It was a great bit easier to find things in nearby Vermont towns and sometimes across the river in New Hampshire. A certain shoe store was especially high on the shopping list. It outfitted the school set each summer for years.

Back when the older ones in our family were in the elementary grades, styles were much different and so were the accepted clothing rules. I distinctly remember the very severe winter when it was finally allowed for the students to wear “jeans” to school. Parents had complained about colder rooms and waiting at bus stops in extreme weather, and finally requirements changed. Suddenly it was not necessary to iron starched dresses each evening for girls to wear next day. It was, however, necessary to polish shoes each night and provide boots and galoshes for each student.

Today I think it would be fair to say that almost anything is acceptable as attire for attending school. From baggy tops and baggy pants, to short and skimpy, the styles swing back and forth from year to year. Today it is also a “must” to have a generous backpack for lugging books and supplies, with or without wheels. It might be difficult to find a few students who are not wearing some kind of sneakers, and galoshes are rarely considered to be necessary. Mittens are “out” and gloves are “in” and hats are popular during the ski season or during a snowstorm.

The older scholars in our family had almost no opportunity for after school activities. School buses delivered everyone home on a set schedule, and not until some years later did a few after school events become possible. One-car families became two-car families and transportation was sometimes available for basketball and baseball and a few classroom clubs such as drama and chorus. Little by little the school day expanded to include a variety of social and educational opportunities. No longer is knowledge and learning confined to just the classroom.

Over the past 30 or so years, athletic programs have become almost a part of the school life. There are a variety of highly organized programs; Little League and football and basketball and track and tennis and golf and swimming and of course school plays and concerts have been added. A high school graduate today comes out of school a well rounded person who has had numerous opportunities to experience and learn many challenges of life that are offered today.

When I look at today’s styles as advertised, I am glad I don’t need to outfit five pupils who will be going back to school. I wouldn’t know what to buy. The sneakers would be easy!

The column quote last week was by W.C. Fields in Popcorn in Paradise.

You probably learned this quote in school: “Beyond him lay the gray Azores, Behind the gates of Hercules…”