Transported to another time

Over the last few months, there has been a lot of reconnecting with old high school friends. It is going to be 25 years since we all graduated from high school and a reunion is on the cards.

Thanks to social media and friend finders, we have managed to connect to a lot of folks using the "ghost to ghost" network...

I know at least a few friends of mine, who stood in line at the school library to get their hands on the one book they could take home every Wednesday, will get the "ghost to ghost" reference.. 

There is now a larger group on Whatsapp, which I could not understand. It is a single serial thread on text, where it is not easy to parse or figure out who is responding to whom. Facebook, which still falls short of my expectations on how things should be does a better job!

Everyone tells me though that for folks who are not used to getting unlimited texts for 10$ a month or 140MBps at a minimum, it is very convenient.  I have joined the group and am figuring out how to check 600+ texts over a 8 hour gap. Stating that my classmates seem to be "prolific texters" is an understatement. 

One our classmates happened to visit our middle school geography teacher, a person who was very special to a lot of kids in the class. Always nice but stern, she had a way to get us to learn, what we needed to learn and drilled it into our heads. She also had a way to confirm that we actually got it! It was not through tests and quizzes but by making us feel proud of displaying what we had learned, to the whole class.

If you got something that no one else got in the class on some special topic, she would award a small pencil to that kid. In "those days", we used to have only the standard 2B lead pencils made by two companies, Natraj and Flora. I might still have a sample of those two somewhere in my shoe box.

Natraj had alternate faces of the hexagonal sides painted red and black and flora was a white pencil with small pink or purple flowers on it. Our Georgaphy teacher was handing out a pencil with a really tiny lead that would pop out when you clicked it.

It was a technological marvel when seen by the eyes of 7th grade students. When I said this to my daughter she went "so you got a mechanical pencil.. big deal!" 

It was a bigger deal than anything she can imagine.

Me : has your teacher even given you anything for being outstanding?

Little one : No

Jr. : Yes she has. I got a free dinner certificate at "The Elephant Bar" restaurant last year. You guys did not even use it or take me there. 

Me : Okay, but why is that any different than my "mechanical pencil" ?

kids : Because mechanical pencils are what we use all the time. We don't use lead pencils.

Then I got their point. They did not "diss" the concept. They did not understand that this was a novelty in those days. 

Today I spent a good thirty minutes rummaging through my shoe box which should now be renamed as my memory box. Opening the shoe box can be a double edged sword. Sometimes it brings a rush of happy memories, but sometimes it is just sadness. Dead friends, relatives, people who have been lost over the years to distance and time, sometimes a tear or two at being able to find a pencil from middle school years!

You just don't throw things like that away! Another thing that the kids are learing from the shoe box concept. 

The pencil still had some lead in it and works. I clicked the pencil and closed my eyes and before knowing it, was in middle school sitting in my Geography class learning about European countries, one at a time, their food, people, culture, currencies, landmarks to visit with a little bit of history thrown in for good measure.

It might be just a "mechanical pencil", but what my kids don't know, is that it is also a time machine!

Comments

[Priya Venkat]

I need to rummage through my shoe box now.........precious treasure, that pencil. Not sure if kids these days appreciate these little gestures. To us, they meant the world!

[Mim]

I stopped going there. Too sad. Too heartbreakingly vivid. You have a strong heart to go to those places all over again. Wow!

[Sundar Narayanan]

hi Priya, hope your rummaging results in good memories !

Mim, thanks. it is luck of the draw..

:)