Memories of back to school fashions. It's that time of year

 Memories of back to school fashions. It's that time of year

As kids, the first day of school was always Tuesday after Labor Day.

Heading back to school in the early 1960s was not a shorts and sneakers event. Mom would drag us off the playground to a clothing store for a new pair of shoes and “back to school” outfit. The clothing store was not a giant superstore, but one of several locally owned retailers whose name was the store’s name. There was nothing worse as a grade school boy having a female store clerk and your mother sizing you up for waist and inseam. Then donning several stiff pairs of corduroys to be judged for proper fit. The shirt fittings were less formal and were just held up to you for color compatibility.

The shoe store was always busy in late August. Sneakers aren’t what they are today, but a splashy pair of Converse All-Stars or Keds back then always beckoned in the store front. First an odd-shaped metal sizing gizmo would gauge length and width and a comment about how much your feet had grown over the summer. The salesperson would emerge from the back with several boxes of stiff leather shoes, most always brown. Laced up tight it was time for a walk around by an angled floor mirror. We could offer an opinion, but it wasn’t binding. New outfit complete it was time to head home.

The outfit would be put away until school started. This was to keep us from spilling, ripping or taking the polish off before the big day. Marching off to school, we lived two blocks away, was always done in stiff new shoes and a scratchy outfit, but we were dressed to the nines. Upstate New York can be quite hot in September. But new school togs were selected to be long lived, so long pants and long sleeve shirts were not on any kid’s list of what's comfortable to wear to reignite our grade school education. The cycle moved from child to parent as we repeated the process with our kids, in a much less formal way, sneakers now made the cut. The kids have long since moved into adulthood and thankfully I only have to worry about making myself presentable as I head out to photograph the first day of school every year.

Looking out across the school gym at the Bourne Intermediate School on the first day, third graders were lined up by classrooms, a sea of curious faces anxiously awaiting a new year in a new school.  I paused to notice the outfits. I wasn’t jealous of their heavy backpacks filled with supplies, no such thing back in my elementary days. But I was envious of their comfortable outfits on the 80-degree day. It was the first day and I had on a long sleeve shirt, long pants and a pair of brown shoes. Some habits are just hard to break.