WHAT COLOR IS AUGUST?

If December is red and green, November is cranberry and turkey, and October is orange and black, just what color is August?



Why is it that as soon as the first of the month rolled around mothers were getting their children ready for school? Why did 'dog days' close down the swimming hole and family vacations were the last hurrah as we stalled for the event called SCHOOL.



In Northern Minnesota, school started the day after Labor Day and ended the day before Memorial Day. For my children, it meant stifling hot days before the Labor Day weekend when all the teachers did was try to keep their make up from running into the shoes. Tablets and pencils, colors and markers are on the shelves now and mothers are trying to keep their children rounded up to pick out supplies. At a recent trip to a box store, there was a little blond headed girl sitting cross legged on the floor, going threw boxes of portfolios, laying the pink ones with kittens to the side. She was too little to need a dozen of them, perhaps it was her way of culling out several before making a decision.



I do remember the color of August one year as a to-be brown checked dress with a smocked bodice, puffed sleeves with a white cuff embroidered in a blanket stitch in wine and a Peter Pan collar to match. The skirt of the dress had a flare to it and the bow tied in the back. It was a dress I would wear a couple of years, and when the hem was taken down, a special stitching was sewn into the old hem line. I was told mother made the dress for me; imagine my surprise to find Marilyn L. had a dress made just the very same way!!!!



As a kindergartner, August was the color of Hanson's old car and the color of the yellow school bus. It was the color of new white anklets and the color of a fresh hair cuts and freckles lost in tans on the cute little boys with missing teeth. It was the color of brick and Big Chief tablets with light aqua lines, and a box of crayons just waiting to be used and red pencils and old tattered Dick and Jane readers and a time for a new beginning in the color of strong chemicals in a building that had freshly waxed floors.



What color is your August?



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