Pride goeth before the fall...
Aug. 29th, 2013 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutter... but it was a beautiful, fall-like day for the Dyke March last Saturday. I found it a congenial gathering, just the right size (unlike the Pride March, which seems larger, more commercial - though I guess in some ways it's a GOOD thing that it's become so mainstream during my lifetime!) Anyway, I liked the friendliness, the intergenerational aspect, the consensual and refreshingly egoless style of the Dyke March. In flavour, it was very reminiscent of the consciousness-raising group I used to go to at the Ottawa Women's Centre during the mid-1970s. The fact that my daughter was performing afterwards in Minto Park and that both grandchildren were along for the ride didn't hurt either!
Fall itself has a rather different rhythm to it for me these days. Back when I was in elementary school, of course, it meant new clothes, new school supplies, a new teacher and group of classmates and often a new school too - although we lived in the same house throughout my school career, they were forever changing school boundaries as one or another school became severely overcrowded and new schools were built. And let me tell you, "overcrowding" had a very different meaning in my young day! I just have to laugh when parents these days complain that their kids' school is overcrowded because their kid is in a class with 25 or 30 other kids - when I was little, that would have been a SMALL class! My kindergarten class had over sixty kids in it (though mind you, there were two teachers). In subsequent grades, classes of 40 to 45 (with only one teacher) were the norm, and a teacher counted herself lucky if she had under 35 kids in her class - even if it was one of those now-dreaded split grades.
When I headed off to university in 1971, university classes didn't get underway until somewhere in mid-September (usually between the 15th and 20th of the month as I recall) and for many students, that meant an extra couple of weeks that they could work and earn money for the next year's tuition - though even allowing for inflation, postsecondary education was not nearly as expensive nor as ubiquitous as it is today. Nowadays, college and university students generally head off to classes no later than the day after Labour Day - which must make life extremely hectic for families who have children (including adult children) at various educational levels!
Once I had completed university, the rhythm of the seasons changed for me again, although there was still that feeling of autumnal renewal during my working life,
even pre-children, as folks came back from holidays and new projects and activities began.
Now that I'm retired, I'm almost finding summers to be busier than the fall, what with all the festivals going on in town - Music & Beyond, Chamberfest and next week, the Folk Festival (which used to be held in August).
Plus ca change...
Fall itself has a rather different rhythm to it for me these days. Back when I was in elementary school, of course, it meant new clothes, new school supplies, a new teacher and group of classmates and often a new school too - although we lived in the same house throughout my school career, they were forever changing school boundaries as one or another school became severely overcrowded and new schools were built. And let me tell you, "overcrowding" had a very different meaning in my young day! I just have to laugh when parents these days complain that their kids' school is overcrowded because their kid is in a class with 25 or 30 other kids - when I was little, that would have been a SMALL class! My kindergarten class had over sixty kids in it (though mind you, there were two teachers). In subsequent grades, classes of 40 to 45 (with only one teacher) were the norm, and a teacher counted herself lucky if she had under 35 kids in her class - even if it was one of those now-dreaded split grades.
When I headed off to university in 1971, university classes didn't get underway until somewhere in mid-September (usually between the 15th and 20th of the month as I recall) and for many students, that meant an extra couple of weeks that they could work and earn money for the next year's tuition - though even allowing for inflation, postsecondary education was not nearly as expensive nor as ubiquitous as it is today. Nowadays, college and university students generally head off to classes no later than the day after Labour Day - which must make life extremely hectic for families who have children (including adult children) at various educational levels!
Once I had completed university, the rhythm of the seasons changed for me again, although there was still that feeling of autumnal renewal during my working life,
even pre-children, as folks came back from holidays and new projects and activities began.
Now that I'm retired, I'm almost finding summers to be busier than the fall, what with all the festivals going on in town - Music & Beyond, Chamberfest and next week, the Folk Festival (which used to be held in August).
Plus ca change...
