Becky Holland: First day of school evokes memories

Becky Holland

The cover of the magazine was the main selling point. It was black, glossy, and on it were color photos of Farrah, Jackie O, the Bee Gees, John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, Michael Jackson, Bo Derek and the guy who played the main character in “The Godfather.”

Celebrate the 70’s declares the special PEOPLE magazine book.

Oh, what a time that was.

In 1974, Richard M. Nixon was president, and Gerald R. Ford was vice president. The population of the United States was 213,853,928. Life expectancy was predicated to be 72.0 years, and a new home cost $38,900.

“Blazing Saddles” was the box office hit, making $119,500, while “Benji” came in fifth, making $39,552,600.

Art Carney won the Best Actor award at the Academy Awards for “Harry and Tonto,” and guess who got Best Director? Francis Ford Coppola.

In Superbowl IX, the Pittsburgh Steelers grabbed a victory over Minnesota, 16-6.

In 1976, heading the news was Jimmy Carter , who was nominated for President.

And I was entering school at Forman Elementary School in Plano, Texas, for the very first time.

Those were the days when school started in September and we had lunch boxes and wore name tags, strange looking pants that were full at the bottom, and of course, barrettes in the hair.

As I recently watched moms, grandmas, dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters ramble through a local retail store, searching for notebooks, paper, pens and more, memories of school shopping floated through my mind.

What happened to the days of the Big Chief writing tablets and the BIG FAT BLUE pencils, and the box of 64 crayons and special scissors?

When I started kindergarten, we had story time, blocks, art/coloring and oh, who could forget, the sandbox?

Remember getting to empty the pencil sharpener? Handing out papers? Erasing the chalkboard, clapping the erases and the seemingly endless litany of tasks the teacher could assign, but kids loved?

What happens now?

Text messaging, Twittering, e-mailing, PowerPoint presentations.

Oh, those were the days.

Who could forget getting stickers on assignments when a job was done well? Or getting caught for passing notes in class?

Now, there are no stickers, but rewards are given out, and who writes letters anymore or notes? Kids today text.

My 16-year-old niece visited last week and I was just amazed watching her fingers fly on the little keyboard belonging to her Verizon cell phone.

She said it is just something she does and it took practice, and then she laughed.

No, it is not the ‘70s anymore, but one thing about starting school still remains the same.

The bells for homeroom to begin still rings out loudly.

Do you have any stories or memories that you would like to share about your first day of school? If so, I would like to know. Just shoot me an e-mail or if it was back in the day, you could pass me a note in gym class.

Those were the days.



Becky Holland is news and education editor of the Americus Times-Recorder and can be reached at becky.holland@gaflnews.com or via telephone at 924-2751.

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