From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Remember when we were kids and school days ended by the end of May? It was planting time for many farmers and they needed workers in the fields. Kids got a break from school work so they could help at home. Today in 2024, many schools are finalizing their work days. Kids are ready to be outdoors in the sunshine playing ball, swinging and swimming.

It’s graduation time. We just received our first invitation to a graduation party from a neighbor kid who grew up too fast for me! Kids are off to college in the fall. The years have have spun by too fast! I’ve loved watching the kids grow through their stages of strollers to Big Wheels to bikes to cars to prom dates…and now graduation.

Yearbooks are being distributed to students and carried to classes for friends to sign with some rememberance of the past year. Usually kids wish each other “Have fun” and “Good luck next year” and “You’re a good kid”…not deep sentiments, but good wishes to all as the year comes to a close.

As I look through my yearbooks from high school and college, I’m struck by the differences of those times in styles, names, mottos and friends’ notes. When I found my Mother Esther’s 1932 Moccasin, her yearbook from the West Central School in Morris, Minn., it was fun reading the captions for each student, the poetry and all the friends’ wishes for her future. That was a time when country kids attended the boarding school, known to some as Cow College, now the University of Minnesota  Morris campus. Due to tough economic times back then, often there wasn’t money for students to return consecutive years to school. Dropping out for a year or more enmabled them to earn money to return to boarding school. 

Throughout Esther’s yearbook are sprinkled notes and poetry by unknown authors.

“Girded with friendship and courage,

Sustained by faith and hope

We have been taught

To look forward to the future

With cheerful expectation.

We have learned to face bravely

The tasks of life as they confront us.

In our teachers we have found

Thoughtful guides, ready helpers,

Fine true friends.”

How times have changed! Photos in Mom’s 1932 yearbook showcased girls with marceled waves and ringlets on their foreheads and guys with hair parted in the middle, upswept waves off the forehead and lots of oil/grease. In my 1960’s Minnewaskan yearbooks, guys wore crew cuts with short hair standing straight up in “butch” cuts or longer hair swept back from the forehead. Girls suffered with huge rollers to create big hair with lovely waves of hair sprayed stiff. Harlequin glasses appeared on several girls; guys wore Buddy Holly glasses.

Names were different too. In today’s yearbooks we’ll see many names from the past which have resurfaced: Hannah, Emma and Grace. In the Sixties girls were named Patty, Mary, Linda, Janet and Carol. In Mom’s yearbook I saw Florence, Norbert, Kermit, Arthur, Pearl, Herman, Iola, Lucille, Clarice, Myrtle, Carleton, Helmut, Cordelia, Agnes, Borghild and Homer. Babies born today will probably be christened Ruby, Reece, Charlotte and Elizabeth. 

Class members and friends from Mom’s era wrote, “You’re a good kid” or “I will always remember you as a happy-go-lucky girl.” Poetry and class prophecies were abundant in the 1932 yearbook. 

“The fun we have had as

We learned our lessons

In this difficult game called Life

Has lightened the burden and

Brightened the day after

Many a weary task.

Let us laugh as we go–

As we’ve laughed while we were here,

And life will have many a song.

The joys of these days

We shall carry through life.

They wll grow brighter with the years.”

We’re fortunate in America: the public school education system is offered to all free of charge. We realize that our children are the future of our country. Scholarships and low interest financial aid are available to those wanting to earn higher degrees. In today’s economy, future training is almost imperative to make a decent living to support yourself/a family.

May is graduation month. It’s time to celebrate, but it’s also a scary time for many. Many graduates will leave home for the first time. At college or jobs, no longer will parents and friends be close by to support and encourage the graduate. Parents are concerned about choices their kids make when they’re away from home in a different living situation. It’s a new life of many possibilities for graduates and for parents who may be empty nesters for the first time in many years.

Graduates, you hold the future in your hands. You have been given a life of many opportunities. Your decisions about how to live your life will determine how bright your future will be. You will always be important to your loving parents. Please realize, YOU make our lives fuller. We hope we’ve helped guide you to a bright future.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.