Back to Campus

This season the ads for return to school usually begin, though the stationery items that I already have in excess started a few weeks back.  Traditionally I look through the ads, not just pens and markers but clothing, sometimes electronics, and storage items intended for cramped dorms but useful to me too.  Until this spring, retirement has made me a little like a college student with more discretionary funds than I had when I was a real student.  My Space is already saturated.  I will probably need dress clothing for my son's upcoming wedding but nothing else.  Even eyeglass renewal is optional, as the prescription change may be too small to justify the expense.  Cookware and small appliances from previous seasons remain in their boxes.  Osher Institute will only assemble online next semester.

My own diversions, cooking, writing, and gardening, do not have a seasonal surge matching back to school.  Even summer vacation with travel has become much subdued by the Coronavirus restrictions.  So I look at Boscov's Back to Campus newspaper insert with nothing to buy.  More importantly, Labor Day has been a traditional transition point: school, the Holy Days, football, wearing a jacket.  Guess I still will need to wear a jacket, though I don't need to add one.  In some ways, our pandemic has effaced some of our calendar and the structure it gives to our year.