I always wax nostalgic when the first week of school rolls around. I was one of those weird children who loved school and couldn’t wait for the summer to end so I could get back to stuffing knowledge into my head.

I grew up in a community much smaller than Enterprise and with far fewer (as in none) of the summer “fun” things to do that are available here. School and church were the lifeblood of our community. Remove one of those, and the situation turned bleak.

My parents were never as tickled to see school start in the fall as we children were because it meant losing their built-in workforce. By virtue of the fact that no one else wanted to do it, I became the de facto operator of the lawn mower. We had acres of lawn. By the time you finished in one corner, it was time to start all over again at the far corner.

To this day, I have an aversion to lawn-mowing. And weeding garden. We also had acres of that. Could there be anything more boring than hoeing corn?

Last week, I pulled up some of the supply lists the Wallowa County school districts had posted to see if anything had changed. It hadn’t, really.

There were the ubiquitous crayons, glue, pencils and spiral notebooks. I noticed the elementary list for Enterprise also had “crackers large boxes (any variety)” and “Kleenix large box.”

When I was in elementary school, these were things teachers provided. It was kind of an unwritten law, I guess. Maybe it was in their contract.

My fifth-grade teacher always had the best snacks in her desk and was always willing to share generously, although eating in the classroom was mostly forbidden because it meant additional work for the janitor.

And the complete ban on gum-chewing was also firmly in place during my formative years. I never did develop a taste for gum. Maybe that’s why.

Most of today’s supply lists didn’t include a protractor. Remember those? I dutifully had one in my backpack every year but can’t remember once actually using it.

I noticed the supply list for Wallowa School District had gone hi-tech. You could locate the list on a website and with one click, order each of the items online, pay with a credit card and have them sent to your home. If your patience for back-to-school shopping is short, this was an excellent solution.

Having had many older brothers and sisters, I do not recall any of my elementary years in which I actually had “new” back-to-school supplies. Everything was something a brother or sister had used the previous year, and it seemed to me I was being short-changed.

One year, I threw a fit demanding a new 96-crayon box with the built-in sharpener. Although my parents were not in the least impressed with my temper tantrum, I did get the crayons. I was so proud of the fact I had Burnt Umber. I used that crayon up first.

I still like Burnt Umber.

Paste is no longer a requirement either. That’s probably for the better. As I recall, we generally ate more of it than we used to hold things together.

To all of the children, parents, teachers, administrators and support staff at all of our schools, we wish you a terrific school year with many accomplishments.