School bell

I had two hours to hike before I wanted to be home to make my son's lunch.

On the way up the hill, I listened to iTunes classical piano radio as the cell service lasted.    When I removed the earbuds, the noise was not what one expects in the woods. I heard the shouts of a gym class out on the field down at the bottom of the hill.

Two other times I had been close to school playgrounds and often heard the children outside. In Bennington, VT, we lived on the same block as a Catholic Church. I would hear the students as I studied my math. In Canyon, TX, when my son was born, we lived down 5th Avenue from the Junior High School. I never thought far enough ahead to realize that he would attend that school.

I keep walking.

All of a sudden, I was aware that the voices below me were gone. Then there was a school bell. And a few minutes later, there was another bell for the next class to start.

I measured my walk home with that last period before lunch. I thought back to my first memories of school bells. As a Baby-Boomer first grader, my classroom was under-utilized space in the junior high school. I was terrified to be caught out in the hallway when a bell sounded and the big kids changed class.

As I came down the hill, I merged onto the path my son would soon take and made it home in time.

This photo was mistakenly taken on that morning. I have included it as an homage to Agnès Varda's dancing lens cap.