The Really Really Famous Fifth Grade Field Trip

May was always a month of field trips back when I was in school, and it would have been a month of field trips this year, too, if everything hadn't gone all upside-down and sideways over the last few months.  Since our students and teachers in 2020 can't go anywhere on field trips this May, I'd like to bring you back in time with me to May 4, 1989, the day the Northern Potter Children's School Fifth Grade Class embarked on an historic trek to our State's Capital City: Harrisburg, Pee-Yay.

It was a memorable trip because we had to leave at 5AM in the Morning!  And we took TWO buses- one for section 5A and another for 5B.  We were going to the William Penn Museum, and then the State Capitol Building, and then we'd be eating dinner at McDonalds in Shamokin Dam on the way home.  We wouldn't be getting home until After Dark! 

Wowza! 

Yep!  We Fifth Graders had really hit the Big Time!

This is before Route 15 was a four-lane much past Williamsport.  I'd never actually been Down That Way, ever in my life, but it turned out to be a route I traveled a LOT less than a decade after this trip.  And I'll never forget the sign for English Center and Buttonwood, because it seemed like we'd been on the road FOREVAH and it was right around there that 5B's bus started having Trouble.  Something on the bus was "leaking like a sieve."

So instead of turning us all back and taking us home, the entire Fifth Grade piled on to 5A's bus, squeezing in 3 to a seat, and off we rolled on our way. 

Now, we were the class that was billed as "The Worst Class to Ever Go Through Northern Potter," somehow, the whole time we were in school.  I'm not sure what we actually did to earn this distinction but we knew our teachers weren't super-thrilled with being out-n-about with us under the best circumstances, and having us all crammed onto one hot, smelly school-bus was tense.

We pretty much had a blast, though.  I think all things considered, with the excitement, and the early leave-time, and the sudden quality-together-time with our entire class on one vehicle, I think Fifth Grade handled it all Very Well!

After what felt like even foreverer forever, we went through Duncannon and saw the replica Statue of Liberty in the Susquehanna River.  That caused quite a sensation.  I'm not sure about the rest of my class, but I hadn't been to such exotic places in my life!

We went on our tour at the William Penn Museum.  We got our picture taken on the marble stairs of the Capitol Building.  We ate our lunches From Home on the patio at the museum, and I think we all felt like big cheeses.  I know we got the biggest kick out of the word "Dam" in "Shamokin Dam" when we stopped for dinner at McDonalds on The Strip on Rts. 11/15.

The sky was turning purple and orange as we headed back up the road.  It had been a hot May 4th that year, and they let us open the bus windows on the way home, so the evening air breezed through the bus.  I remember a lot of chatter about all the things we'd seen that day.  I remember at some point, the driver slowed down and pointed out a huge herd of deer feeding on the side of a hill on the way home.  As advertised, we didn't get home until After Dark. 

That was the Really Really Famous Fifth Grade Field Trip of May 4, 1989.  I don't remember what Friday, May 5th brought to 5th Grade.  We must have been tired.  I know we were full of stories.

My heart breaks for the kids who aren't going on their long-awaited field trips this May.  There's always a certain uncomfortable factor when it comes to Travel, especially when classmates and school buses are concerned.  But that trip stuck with us for the rest of the time we were in school. I think it's stuck with us for our whole lives.  I hope that when we can travel again, there are still Field Trips, with 5 AM in the Morning AIS leave times.  I hope there are always teachers who can roll with things when things don't go to plan.

And I hope, after all the isolation and quarantining, that when we can Return, there will always be Classmates to make lifelong memories with.