We lived for class trips when we were kids. We based our whole expectation for the school year around our class trips. If there were reports from older siblings of a glorious trip they had taken when they were in whatever grade we were currently struggling to inhabit, we eagerly expected the same. We would chatter amongst ourselves, almost buzzing with excitement, for days before any outing. Our teachers seemed to be extra strict with us as the day moved closer, but that was probably to save us from ourselves. We were young but we could have given ourselves strokes from the level of our excitement, if left to our own devices.
Other years, poorer years in our estimation, yielded only a trip to the local historic museum (a trip we’d already made in a previous grade or with our Brownie troupe) or maybe to one of the old pioneer cemeteries to take pencil/charcoal rubbings of the headstones of our city’s original white settlers.
Well, THAT sounds weird now. Is it weird or is it cool?
Regardless of how it now seems, this trip was definitely slotted into the Lack Lustre category of school trips for us.
Mind you, I’d be lying if I said that any one of us would have rather stayed put in our classroom instead of piling into some parent’s car or onto a yellow school bus, devoid of shock absorbers, for still another trip to the pond at the other end of town to gather bugs or to identify plants or to listen (“listen”) to an interpretive talk about the pond’s storied highlights.
Oh, we were keen enough to ditch school, that’s for sure, but we felt cheated if all we got was an afternoon touring the downtown library instead of a full day’s jaunt to the Science Centre in the Big City! Maybe downtown libraries should have gift shops that cater to juveniles.
We went to the apple orchard and ran around squealing like maniacs, to the sugar bush and ran around squealing like maniacs, and to the local police station where we huddled close together wide-eyed, slack jawed, and hoping to just make it home to our families that night. I know of at least two kids that we should have just left there in order to save everyone time and irritation.
We were taken to matinees of ballets, theatre presentations, and symphonic orchestras. I wonder if we were ever quizzed on what we’d seen or heard on those trips, or if they were ever explained to us in any way. It must have been madness to attempt to settle 30 fully charged 10-year-olds to the point where they would semi-quietly watch even 30 minutes of music or dance in a darkened theatre.
We spent at least one day (it feels like we did this trip twice) from sunup to sunset, driving 2 hours down the highway to the closest zoo—where we ran around squealing like maniacs in the full sun until we were all sufficiently sunburnt and it was time to pile back onto the bus. The bus would struggle through the rush hour traffic to finally disgorge the whole class (or two) back at school for parental pick up. Often a full 90 minutes late and hangry.
A couple of times we went en masse to the local theme attraction in the big park in town. The theme was a bit muddled as it mashed storybook motifs with random pens holding live animals. We didn’t mind that they were random because the most exotic animals that the majority of us had experienced were our family pets. (Side note to those from my hometown: I just found out that Slippery the Seal escaping and then being caught 10 days later someplace in the States, was just a publicity stunt! I remember WEEPING back then over at the tales of what that poor seal had been through!!!)
We got to be a tough crowd to impress; I’ll give you that. After several years of class trips of various quality, we gained a seasoned world-weary attitude of expectation. For grade schoolers. Thankfully, there were very few trips offered to us once we graduated to high school, or we would have gotten to the point where we wouldn’t settle for anything less than a three-day jaunt to Europe on the Concorde. Any school trips offered post-elementary were sport or music specific and never in the ‘general interest’ category like those from our heady grade school years.
I think I’d like to start going on class trips again, wouldn’t you? It’d be fun to pack a brownbag with a cheese sandwich (sans condiments for some reason) on pre-sliced white bread, along with a tiny box of raisins, 3 or 4 of those oatmeal cookies that Mom used to make, and a can of pop that is certain to fizz all over the place on opening. Once lunch is made and bagged, we could all meet up at a certain spot, pick a partner/buddy to hold hands with for the rest of the day so we don’t get lost, and wait for a bright yellow school bus with utility grade seats to pull up and whisk us away for an outing. Singing loudly.
Then, of course, once we got to the destination, we would run around as fast as possible, squealing like maniacs. At the end of the day, we could re-board the bus, sleep all the way back to our pickup spot, and forget our windbreakers on the bus.
All that needs doing now is to print up permission slips and forge our parents’ signatures! Once we’ve done that, we’ll draw straws to determine who has to be the responsible adult among us. (If that turns out to be me, we’re doomed.)
It all sounds kind of cathartic, doesn’t it?
