By Regena Handy

The scene is an autumn morning, the maple trees dressed out in varying shades of gold. The sunlight reflects a crispness, as if it had just burned off an early morning fog.

I don’t know the date of the picture. Judging by our appearance I would guess around 1960. My brothers are not yet sporting the flat-top hair cuts that they would adopt within the next couple of years. My lips are self-consciously pressed together in a smile that concealed the loss of several baby teeth.

It is a school morning. We are all carrying books and little brown paper lunch bags that our mother packed that morning. Most likely they were filled with sandwiches made with bananas, possibly peanut butter, or even sliced luncheon meat from a tin. If there was time, Mom would have let me open the meat, using the little key that came with the can.

My oldest brother is wearing his dark blue FFA jacket. Both boys are dressed in denim jeans with precisely ironed sharp creases. The little blue coat that I recall from my first grade year is buttoned over an orange plaid dress. I am wearing white socks and oxfords of two-tone brown. My brothers have on penny-loafers.

When the school buses started rolling this week, that picture unexpectedly came to mind. I pondered what life in general was like then, particularly for us kids. Though we know that to a child, the slightest problem can take on monstrous proportions, when I recall that period, my fears seem very small.

I recall another photo—a quarter of a century later—one of my own sons on the first day of their new school year. Their sweet innocent faces shaded by baseball caps; each clasped a bookbag. They wore shorts and t-shirts, sneakers and sport socks banded in stripes. I would speculate that their pockets held money to purchase school meals as this tired mom seldom seemed to have time to pack lunch for them.

I mulled the differences of their childhood from mine, what they might have been facing that particular day in comparison. I tried to remember what world crisis we were concerned about at the time. I thought of the vast changes that their children—our grandchildren—are now experiencing and felt a heavy dread.

We all know that every generation has its own tribulations. This is not something new. That just as our children now worry over our grandchildren, so did we when they were young. The same holds true for our parents and every generation before them.

I think back to that early morning picture—my brothers and I look happy. Yet I can recall my mother telling me once that when I was a baby, a particularly troublesome event was taking place and how concerned she was that her little girl would grow up in such a scary world.

But one thought reassures me. That despite our concerns, children are still children. Let’s dwell on the good stuff—that they are strong, resilient, brave. I must believe they will forge their own future with optimism and look back on their childhood with fond memories just like the little girl in the home-made orange plaid dress.