One day many years ago, a friend told me she would be home-schooling her two little boys. I was aghast. With three of my own the prospect was unthinkable. “Doesn’t she know what the big yellow bus is for?” I asked my husband when he got home that night from another day in the middle school trenches.

Of course I was speaking from a purely selfish impulse. Even then I knew of home schooling’s benefits; there must be a reason the National Spelling Bee Champion is often home-schooled. But yes, my heart lifted every morning as the bus ground to a halt in front of our house and I counted 1-2-3, as the boys, their backpacks, lunch boxes and musical instruments climbed inside.

And my heart fell some seven hours later when the dog perked up –dogs always hear the bus before we do – and the boys came home. I must admit that the worst afternoons were the days my Cub Scout den was meeting here. Six or seven more little boys. Surely you can feel the pain.

So here I am, some thirty years later, with three young grandchildren living overhead. The family’s resident teacher has been gone for three years, and suddenly the big yellow bus isn’t stopping outside. But I’m, thankfully, not the one responsible for their schooling. That falls to their mom and dad; Dad has already resigned, citing his unfitness for the job, claiming he’d make a better custodian or lunch lady. Apparently the old man’s teaching gene didn’t get passed down to his middle son.

Serendipity stepped in: Tracee, their mom and my daughter-in-law, left her job with the state the day before LCS closed its doors for who knows how long. So instead of settling into the future she and I had planned – reviving Sleepy Hollow Rag Rugs, weaving, and gardening – she’s running a classroom of three. A third grader, fourth grader, and sixth grader make up her first class, and this old farmhouse with its many nooks and crannies, woods, Frohock Brook and Mountain, and menagerie of two dogs, four cats, a dozen tropical fish, and a cockatiel is their classroom.

This former DHHS worker who spent the past two decades immersed in child protective issues is making one of those head-spinning transitions so many people are doing these days. She’s learning how to be a teacher. It’s always a hard job – “teachers aren’t paid enough for what they do!” is a common on-line thread these days – but teaching your own kids? No thanks! There’s a certain dynamic when dealing with the children you’re raising, getting them to buckle down, to stay put when all the distractions of home are beckoning.

Twice a week a car pulls up outside and a familiar figure hops out carrying bags of breakfast and lunch as well as packets of lessons from the children’s teachers. Angela Wheaton, the school’s food service director, has organized this meal program, which is being implemented by a rotating team of LCS staff, assembling the bags of food and delivering them. Any parent can request the food deliveries; email Angela to get on the list.

Tracee says the meals are a big help, both from the standpoint of the household’s weekly food bill, but also for the psychological boost it gives to the day. Morning lessons are followed by lunchtime when everyone can get out their lunch and connect with their friends online.    A few romps around the garden with Conrad, the upstairs dog, while downstairs dog Fritz watches longingly out the window, and then Tracee gathers them all up for some afternoon art or science experiments; occasionally in the late afternoon, guitar or clarinet tunes drift down to me.

The teaching gene did turn up in our first son, who is also sheltering in place in the New Hampshire boarding school where he works. Bill continues to teach math, long distance of course, to his high school students even as he home schools his three – a fourth, a sixth, and a ninth grader – new territory, even for a 26-year teaching veteran. He and Tracee share tips and the difficulties of getting their own kids to settle down.

He helpfully sent along an iPad app he’d found for Tracee’s two boys to practice their cursive writing. They can add their own words with recordings of the words in their voice. You use Google Voice to look up the spellings and then type them in. Here’s the list his 9-year-old had compiled: fart, pee, poop, snot, intestines, fishypoop – you get the idea.

Meanwhile, Tracee’s got things under control – most of the time. Math lessons come in packets from each child’s teacher. Little paper labels in French have appeared on the appropriate piece of furniture. She dug out the old time lapse camera so the fourth grader could train it on his emerging watermelon seed project. Everyone’s working on a stop action movie involving an original script they’ve concocted and some elaborate Lego sets. I’m hearing much less bickering and downright fighting amongst the siblings these days.

And each child’s reading a book: one boy chose a book on dragons, another found a sci fi story about finding a new planet to live on (!), and the sixth grader is immersed in a WW II novel. “Tell me about the chapter you just read,” Tracee said to one of them, sitting in my living room the other day; a ten minute synopsis followed.

What on earth would our patriarch/teacher think of this development? A multi-grade home school, children roaming over Frohock Mountain collecting lichens, writing reports sitting in the bed of Grammie’s truck, holding gym class via X-box?

And a footnote: here’s what’s been playing in the back of my mind as I wrote this morning. I’m thinking of Nick Learnard, the young man who grew up just up the road from us, a couple of years behind my youngest. He and his brother Brandon spent their childhood roaming and exploring the woods and hills behind their house, boarding the big yellow bus, going through the grades at LCS as mine did. Nick passed away last week after a hard battle with cancer. I think of his mom and dad, Linda and Greg, and of his brother, and of the unimaginable stuff life can throw at us. Things we don’t think we can survive. My deepest sympathy to all those who loved Nick….

Town

As the days go by we’re relying more and more on reliable information coming from our government….Federal, state, and town. Dave Kinney, our town administrator, has kept us informed of various changes vis a vis the Virus….like delaying vehicle registration, etc. One thing we do have to do is pay our property taxes tomorrow, April 1, by check please, in the drop box at the Town Office or online via the town’s website.

Library

 Librarian Sheila Polson writes: “Townspeople have temporary free access to Ancestry.com’s Library Edition at home. This is great news for anyone with time on their hands (and who doesn’t?). To access the site, go to the Maine Digital Library.

“Scroll down and click on “Ancestry Library Edition for use in public libraries."

“It’s also worth spending time exploring the wealth of other information available via the Maine Digital Library on everything from agriculture, books, and culinary arts to careers, languages, and religion. It could keep you engaged for hours!”

Not Everyone Has Time on Their Hands

I write as a 75-year-old kept housebound by her vigilant children. Many more are housebound by their own good sense at staying in and thus away from any infected people.

But for every one of us there’s a nurse, a doctor, a mailman, a cook or a child care provider, a utility worker, a delivery person, a social worker, a journalist, a grocery or pharmacy worker, fireman or policeman who has to go to work, to try and stay safe and to keep what’s left of our shut-down world running.