We would go on field trips during the year, little visits to the Haines dairy farm or the Nike missile base, but these were short affairs and we'd still spend several hours back in the classroom. The school trip was special. It would last all day. It would be far from Woodbury Heights, and we'd ride on a great big bus. We'd be with that "other" grade as well, so we had a chance to hang out with the kids we hardly knew.
First we had to get that all important permission slip signed by one of our parents, usually your mother, because dad was always at work. Once you had that in your hot little hand you were in like Flynn, and you'd count the days till it seemed like the big event would never come.
Then the day would come and there we all were, 40 or 50 of us standing in line outside that big bus, answering roll call and shaking with excitement.
I always behaved myself. A lot of boys would fidget in line, shoving and pushing each other in that senseless display of young manhood. I couldn't behave that way, because I could feel my parents' eyes on me; they expected me to always show good manners outside the home. I must have seemed like such a goody two-shoes to some of my friends, always polite, always obeying the rules. Besides, some of our mothers would be chaperones, even my own, so the eyes of our parents were always upon us.
We'd board the bus, and there was always that same smell. What was it? A mixture of diesel fumes and air conditioning, the rubber floor and the aromas from all those packed lunches floating in the air. It was intoxicating.
We jostled for seats, hoping for a window. Maybe I'd sit with Billy Reim or Dave Hampel instead of Robbie McWilliams or Paul LaPann for a change. I would rather have sat with one of the prettiest girls, but that just wasn't done, no you waited until you were a teenager before showing any interest in the opposite sex.
We would listen to the rules: stick together, stay with your group, pay attention to the schedule and behave yourself at all times. Now let's have fun, everybody!
The roar of the engines, and off we'd go, a mass of laughing, yapping excited little crazy people.
We were out for adventure and the thrill of getting out of a day in school. We were supposed to be learning. We were learning how to socialize, how to experience the outside world, and maybe glean something from whatever museum we happened to visit.
You might learn that your best friend got car sick, and the bus ride caused them to spew all over everybody.
I learned that I was afraid of heights when we visited the Philadelphia Airport. We walked out on the roof of one of the buildings to observe the planes landing and taking off, and I felt this weird sensation take hold of me. It was several stories up, and my legs wouldn't move. I stood in the center of the observation platform while all l the rest of my classmates were at the edges. I just looked straight up at the sky, waiting for the teacher to tell us all to go back inside. I never told anyone; I couldn't tell anyone; I didn't understand my own fear.
The human heart at the Franklin Institute bothered me. It was dark inside, and it was beating; it reminded me of some bad horror movie plot, so I stayed away from that.
The Franklin Institute was always a mixture of wonder and disappointment. You could thrill to the giant steam locomotive in the railroad room and be mesmerized by the great pendulum, but it always seemed like a lot of the hands on exhibits were always out of order, so you could never really enjoy them. Thousands of little hands were wreaking havoc on the displays every day, so it's a wonder that they survived at all.
The Fels Planetarium was my favorite part of the Franklin Institute. The first time there you'd think, "hey, this is just a round room filled with chairs, how exciting could this be?". But then the lights would go out and I'd be staring at the night time sky, and I wished it would never be over. Just like standing in a snowstorm all by myself, just me and the stars in the sky.
The Philadelphia Zoo was fun but also sad. It is one of the oldest zoos in the world, and in the 50s and 60s it showed it. The cages were out-dated and the monkeys and gorillas looked exactly like what they were: imprisoned and in despair. Zoos hadn't adopted natural habitat displays yet, so for the most part we looked at caged beasts that wanted to be let out. I much preferred the Cohanzick Zoo in Bridgeton Park. It was informal and it didn't have many exotic animals, but it was a much happier place, and Dad would take us out on the lake in a canoe or a rowboat.
The time would come when we'd have to leave, and the round up would begin. There were always a few stragglers, the rough-housers and the totally clueless had to be collared and brought back into the fold, and we lined up to take our places back on the bus. The roll was called, the engines roared, and home we'd go, just as loud as when we started.
On the way home we talked about what we'd seen, or just looked out the windows reflecting on the day gone by. Maybe you became better acquainted with someone from the "other" grade, and found yourself a brand new best friend. You looked at what you bought at the gift shop and wondered if you made the right choice after all, and you hoped nobody would get motion sickness again. We arrived at the school and piled out to waiting parents sitting patiently in the family car, and we'd chatter on and on about the day's events the whole drive home.
Museums and zoos, farms and historic places; the smell of the bus and the long ride home.
Where will we go next year?
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