Back To School Memories: Forging Friendships in Unexpected Ways

If your TV hasn’t been flooded with back-to-school ads since mid-July, then you haven’t watched much TV this summer.

I’ve always been amazed at how (at least for our part of the country) back-to-school ads start showing up less than a month after school ends. It brings the same feeling to me as when the middle aisles of CVS and Walgreens have Christmas-themed items in them starting on the days leading up to Halloween. Why does the commercial industry always want us thinking months ahead?

I know, I know. It’s all about money. And who doesn’t love buying gingerbread men with their Halloween candy? But in regards to back-to-school ads, I’ve always said, especially when I was one, “Let the kids enjoy their summer—it goes by too fast as it is.”

And with New Canaan Public Schools commencing the 2015-16 school year on Thursday, I don’t have to tell students, parents or teachers, how fast this summer went. I’m not even in school anymore, and I can attest to the feeling that this summer flew by.

But with school starting this week, and all the ads that have been plastered over my TV screen, and having taken advantage of some of the back-to-school deals that stores have offered, I honestly can’t help but yearn for being back in the middle of that—back to looking forward to what classes I was taking, what I would learn from them, and who would be in them.

Back to being challenged to not just remember facts and dates, but to write a 7-page, double-spaced, research paper on flamingos. OK, I never was asked to do that, specifically, but I think you get my point.

Ever since I left the classroom after getting my bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire in May 2013, the post-grad world has brought a reality that was much different than the one school brought me. What I mean by that is I always felt some level of comfort with school—mostly because much of my work and results reflected that I understood what I was being taught, and in some cases, excelled in doing so.

Post-grad life, at least to this point, hasn’t been as kind. I have only had one extended term of employment in more than two years since I graduated college, and that lasted just eight months.

It’s somewhat discouraging and deflating that I haven’t had more in that time, but lately I have been pursuing my passion of writing. Including being able to report on Rams sporting events this past winter and spring, and again this upcoming fall, in addition to sharing personal pieces with you about what different things and events that are related to New Canaan mean to me—which is what I want to do again here.

Back-to-school time brings back such great memories for me from all 14 years I went to school in New Canaan (from pre-K-senior year). So I thought I would share some of them with you, specifically the first days of four of those years, and hope that they put either you (if you’re a student or teacher) or your children (if you’re a parent) in the right mood for this time of year.

First Day of Kindergarten

There are very few memories of a child’s time in school that are more memorable than the day they started kindergarten—at least for the parents. I’m not sure many children can remember much that happened when they were four to six years old. I, myself, don’t remember that entire day. But I do have a specific memory of that day, one that got my time at South School off to a great start.

Those of you who read my article about moving from New Canaan back in April might recall me sharing this memory then, but my first day of kindergarten included me missing the bus to get me there. Well I didn’t miss it. I was there waiting for it up on Mead Street with my mom, nana, and a couple neighbors and their mom, where we were told the bus would pick us up.

However, the driver must not have been informed of such information because when they saw Park Street as the address to pick up and no one was out there waiting for it, they just zoomed on by.

So when the bus didn’t stop I told my mom, as only a 5-year-old can, “That’s it! I’m not going to kindergarten! The bus didn’t come!”

Quite the start to my education, right?

Thankfully, my mom wasn’t easily convinced as she and Nana drove me in to school that day, and I began on my journey through the New Canaan Public School system in Miss Rende (now Mrs. Charkales) and Mrs. Tomey’s class.

I also met and became friends with several of my classmates that I’m still in contact with to this day. I’m not saying we do everything together these days, but we still know the highlights of what’s going in each other’s lives—which the happening of is highly probable in a town like New Canaan. A town where (at least in my 14 years of going through the schools) many of my classmates and friends’ families stayed, which made me very fortunate to be able to develop some lifelong friendships.

But the legend of the morning of my first day of kindergarten has lived on in our family for 19 years, and I’m certain that the memory of your child’s first day of kindergarten will live on forever.

Enjoy it, parents, because someday far too fast for your liking, your son or daughter will be a 24-year-old, writing a reflection of what their first day of kindergarten in the New Canaan Public Schools was like.

First Day of Seventh Grade

Yes, I’ve jumped a few years in my trip down memory lane. A second ago I was five, now I’m going back to when I was 12. But there are different reasons I remember that ‘back-to-school’ feeling, and not all of them compare to what the first day of seventh grade was like for me.

Also, in elementary school, I don’t know about your or your child’s experience, but I was never all that concerned with whether my close friends were in my class or not—and honestly, they hardly ever were.

My best friend of 20 years, Brandon Sorbara and I were only in the same elementary school class in the first grade.

Another best friend of mine, Thomas Mase, was only in the same elementary school class as me in the second grade.

So I knew very early on that I may not have the opportunity to always have a class with my close friends, and therefore learned to become friends with those who were in my class. I knew that there would still be time to hangout with my close friends, either at recess or on a ‘play date’ after school.

But the thing about elementary school is, at least in the case of New Canaan, you’re only meeting, roughly, one-third of the children who attend public school. So when you get to Saxe and realize that there are about 67 percent more kids in public school in this town, it can become overwhelming (especially for an incredibly shy boy like I was then) to see so many fresh faces. It really makes those familiar ones be treasured.

By the summer after sixth grade, though, I felt comfortable in Saxe. In part because I was coming off a year where Brandon was in a couple of classes with me, and also because after meeting and becoming friendly with so many of those unbearably fresh faces I didn’t know at all two years earlier, I felt like I had gotten to know all the classmates and friends that I would need to, to make my third year of Saxe a breeze.

I was wrong.

The first day of classes that year, on my core team, meaning those I would have the four major classes (math, science, language arts, and social studies) with, I knew, and I mean really knew, only a handful of people. Sure, most of the faces and names were familiar to me from seeing them around school the previous couple years—but I honestly couldn’t believe the disparity.

I first said to myself, “How?” Or more like screamed it to myself. How could I only know five out of 70 some people? But it was true.

However, instead of that being my main takeaway from the first day of seventh grade, what I remember most is when about halfway through that first day, on my way to band class (I played the clarinet, 5th-8th grade, woohoo!), I ran into a girl that I had both met and become good friends with just the year before, in large part because we had all of our classes together.

I thought her reaction that day when she saw me would just include a ‘Hi’, which is exactly what I was mentally preparing for as she walked towards me. She was a pretty and popular girl, and me being a shy 12-year-old, didn’t have many opportunities to talk with popular girls outside of class, so I didn’t want to blow the ‘Hi’ I would say in return to hers.

However, she took me completely by surprise when, after she realized I was walking towards her, she shouted my name so it echoed throughout the hall, sprinted in my direction, and held me in a tight hug for a good five seconds.

I can’t say for certain how cool I played it on the outside, but I sure was jumping for joy on the inside. As I said, I didn’t have too many moments with the pretty and popular up to that point, but that action from her showed me that she really was my friend, and that she missed me over the summer, and even though we weren’t on the same core team that year, we were going to have conversations and talks outside of class as well. Then later that day, I was pleasantly surprised to see her in my Spanish class, and knew that having her there would make that class one to look forward to each day.

But remember back a moment ago, when I was fearful of not knowing the majority of my core team classmates? It turned out to not be such a terrible thing.

I got to meet many more great people, plenty of whom I was friends with through high school—and even some of whom I’m still in touch with to this day.

The girl who had the locker next to me that year because we were alphabetically in order on the list of students on the red team, Hillary Sapanski, is one of those friends I’m still in touch with to this day.

I met Andy Stinchfield in seventh grade, a guy who made me laugh probably hundreds of times that year alone, and has made me laugh hundreds if not thousands of more times since. I reconnected with Ross Kronberg, someone who I had those ‘playdates’ with after meeting him in our kindergarten class, but who moved to a different house in New Canaan that caused him not to go to South anymore.

These names may not mean anything to you but, hopefully, they make you recall a similar time in your prior school years when you went through a related feeling. And, even when something may seem daunting initially, that it doesn’t always have to be so; if you give it time and your attention, it can end up being a pretty great experience.

First Day of High School

My primary intent in including this day is in order to offer my advice for those incoming freshmen to NCHS.

First off, freshmen, you’re coming to a state-of-the-art school. Saxe is nice (at least it was when I was in it; haven’t been in it much since I stopped going there 10 years ago), but the look of the high school will blow you away.

So be grateful for the fact that you get to have your high school years in a state-of-the-art building. Because you won’t have to walk through construction zones and have your Earth Science classes take place in a trailer out next to what is now the auxiliary gym’s location like I did. Of course, that’s after your first period health class that first day was in what actually is now the auxiliary gym’s location, way before it ever resembled a second gym.

Yeah, when I walked into high school, I was walking through a place that, in certain spots, resembled a city block where a new skyscraper is being built. And they didn’t do freshmen orientation until after the first day of classes was complete and I had already found out, through trial and error, of course, where everywhere I needed to go was.

Yeah, I walked into the wrong class once on the first day, therefore showing up late to one of mine because I didn’t know how the letter-period schedule worked (I hear it’s now a numbered period schedule), nor why room 218 wasn’t anywhere near room 217.

So I went through what any fish coming out of water would, which is what walking into high school as a ninth grader can feel like.

I had a couple juniors and a senior in my Spanish II class and other upperclassmen in my electives. Get used to that, freshmen, because those types of classes will likely never entirely be students from your grade.

But you want to know what saved me on that first day? Freshmen English.

It did because while it was the class I was late to as a result of me going to that wrong room, and believe me when I say I was far from the guy who wanted to make that grand entrance on the first day of class. But by being late, everyone in that class knew that I was in it.

And with just one empty seat left, it turned out that the empty seat was across the aisle from a girl that I had become friends with the year before in the eighth grade. And as I sat down, this girl said to me, “Hey Jes! I’m so glad that you’re in this class!” Her name is Jackie Hull. And more than a decade of friendship later, she is one of my best friends.

I also met Matt Moran in that class. Up until that school year, he had gone to St. A’s, so I had never met him before. But through our shared love of the Mets and other friends we would have in common over the years that followed, Matt’s one of my closest friends today.

That class also included Jen Popper, who I also was meeting for the first time that day despite her having gone to Saxe, in addition to Frank Granito, Maggie Groves and Mateo Pagani. I consider each of them to be friends of mine. And I had other classes with other friends of mine that year, too.

It brings me back to what I was just saying about handling a situation or task that seems daunting. As the great Mark Twain once put it, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

It’s all right to be nervous about such a new and different environment like going from Saxe to the high school can be. But there’s no reason to let those nerves overtake you; especially when you will have friends and familiar faces all over the place that are going through the exact same thing.

First Day of Senior Year

Walking into the high school the first day of my senior year, while I was far from the most popular kid in my grade, like any senior should feel, I carried a sense of confidence and accomplishment for now being the oldest in the school, the “Kings of the Hill” if you will.

Seniors, you worked through your progression of where your socially allowed to sit in the cafeteria to the point where you can finally sit in the back left corner and be right next to the side door that goes out to the patio! You can drive a car to school! I know juniors can, too, but senior parking, at least to my knowledge, is unlimited; juniors are able to on a as-needed basis. And ‘need’ doesn’t qualify as “I need to go off campus during my triple lunch” if you’re a junior. It does if you’re a senior though! If you have your license, of course.

I didn’t have my license when I was a senior. Yep, I was that guy. Not sure if I was the only guy who that was the case for but I was one of them. I recommend that you try your best to not be that guy because while your close friends will try to give you rides to town or your house or wherever as often as they can, it’s difficult to have to rely on others to get you places.

But other than being dropped off on my first day of senior year, I experienced a lot of what I thought seniors should feel on their first day being the top of the heap.

I caught up with friends who I didn’t see over the summer, which was always something I looked forward to doing on the first day of school. Truth be told, I didn’t do many things with my friends over the summer just because it wasn’t what I thought summers were about. I thought, “Hey, I see these people nine to ten months out of the year, and even though I have a great time when in their company, summer doesn’t have to be a time where I see them, because I’ll see them again in September.”

So when that’s your mentality, the first day of school will always be something you look forward to. But it was especially so my senior year because, in the back of my mind, even though graduation was nine-and-a-half months away, I knew that it would be the final September I would see all of these familiar faces in the same place – literally the final time.

Our class had its five-year reunion last November, and while more than 130 people attended, our class totaled 283. So while almost half our grade came, that means that half were not able to. So yes, September of 2008 was the final September and first day of school that I shared, in person, with all of my classmates and friends.

One of the best things about that school year for me, though, was even in my final year in the New Canaan Public School system, I continued to make friendships with people I hadn’t before—some of whom I saw at the five-year reunion. I also reconnected with a girl that year who I, through lack of common classes and my inactivity in the social scene, had lost touch with despite us going to the same school during all those years. It does happen.

And by getting that second chance to be friends with her as a result of finally having a class together again, I got to lean on her friendship while my nana was going through an illness during Thanksgiving 2009. Proving that it’s never too late to either reconnect or begin a friendship with someone that you go to school with.

Senior year was a special year for me and my classmates. Our football team that year is the most recent football team to go undefeated. As a sports enthusiast, and one who attended eight of the 13 games including both the FCIAC and CIAC championships, because I had many friends on the team that year, that was something pretty special to both experience and witness.

I got to watch Brandon play a lot of his hockey games in person, which while we were close friends, was not something I got to do all that much before that year. Plus that team had several other friends of mine on it, too.

I got to have three classes with Brandon that year after having one with him junior year; this after not having any with him for the four years prior to that.

Two of the classes we shared were with Mrs. Susan Steidl as our teacher, someone who I have visited with at least once a year in the six full years it’s been since last having her.

And while I didn’t have any classes with Thomas, Jackie or Matt, I did have a couple with another close friend of mine, Zach Swanson.

And then that spring, Thomas Mase and Zach Swanson were more than my close friends as they also became my teammates when I made the varsity baseball team. A team where I also got to meet and become friends with several others, much of whom I have seen and/or kept in touch with in the time that’s since passed.

That’s just a sample of the great things that happened to me during my senior year. There are so many more, including getting accepted into college.

And the same can happen for you, or your son or daughter. Senior year is a year filled with plenty of opportunities; much of those happen in the classroom while others happen outside of it.

I promise you that the feeling you get from succeeding in each of them will both be incredibly rewarding. Whether you’re a ‘straight-A’ student or not, though, don’t overlook what the classroom has meant to you in order to get to this point, your first day of your senior year. You wouldn’t be here without the work you have done in there.

And be sure to not let this year fly on by and leave you, when you look back on it all, saying, “Oh, you know, I wish I could’ve done this better.” Or, “Man, if only I didn’t let that distract me from doing as well as I’m used to (or should have).”

You don’t get school years, or any years for that matter, back. You only get one shot. So seniors, make this a year that you, as well as your friends and families, are going to be proud of – so that when you see them at graduation in June, you can look at their smiles and feel them as you smile, brightly, back at them.

I hope you enjoyed my reflection of those first days of school, and no matter who is reading this, that either you or someone you know can relate to those experiences of mine.

I was incredibly fortunate to go through all of the New Canaan Public School system. The education I got, as some national and state surveys have recently portrayed, was top-notch.

But while part of my reasoning for writing you these words was because of wanting to help others as they gear up for their first day of a new school year this week, and reminisce about some pretty great times. I can’t help but realize another motivation for me writing this.

I miss school.

Wow, I honestly never thought I would say that. But I do. I do because of what it gave me. Which was not just an immense amount of knowledge and capabilities over the course of 22 years (day care through pre-k, then kindergarten-undergrad); but was also the ability to be surrounded by exceptionally kind-hearted, talented, and incredible individuals each and every day I attended.

I am blessed to have gone to school in New Canaan. And you or your children are as well.

No matter your or their age, believe that something special will happen this school year – hopefully many special things; because they’re going to a place (a New Canaan Public School) where the possibility of something special happening is endless.

Thank you.