Back to School!

From Grade School to Junior High to High School to College and Beyond - Were They Really the Best Years of Your Life?

By Anthony Buccino

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a child, after a long day of schoolwork, must be in want of penny candy from the corner store.

Kindergarten Flashback

Something tells me you went to catholic school. Maybe it’s the way you flinch when someone talks with their hands? Or the way your heart palpitates when a rubber-tipped yardstick is concerned? And the sight of penguins still makes you sweat and squirm?

Air Raid Drill Memories From Under the Desk

We took cover in neat order in virtually any place that was away from the windows. We sneaked a look back and waited for the Russian’s A-bomb to come crashing through any one of the many windows in our school.

Brown bagging lunch through the years

Coworkers tried not to be obvious as they craned to see if my new wife scored my brown bag lunch orange as my mom had for the past five years.

First Robin of Spring

A boy in a new neighborhood makes friends with a lost baby robin, feeding it, and teaching it to perch and take short flights.

Penny Candy From the Corner Store

From the earliest grades to grad schools everywhere, when that end of school bell rings, children queue, nickels in hand, to be the first to reach the candy counter...

Peter Pan Revisited Our 1969 Freshman Play, a Musical

It’s been a long time since I’ve thought  much about Peter Pan, much less my freshman English class production of the rock ‘n’ roll version called affectionately “Peter Pan Revisited.”

Bellwood Crier has-been

Two boys can always get along, but a third usually means something's going to get out of kilter. And so it was that day in the first half of the block of Carpenter Street...  

Snow Days in the 60s

My friends and I would tromp through the snow playing war or starting wars or chasing the dog and we'd laugh 'til our tears froze along with our running noses. And then we laughed some more.

Joyrides at Monk's Castle and Albino Village

And the only time we ever heard about somebody who went to Albino Village was when they came back and told us about how scared they were and how lucky to get out before they were grabbed by the Albino people.

Institutional Green

Between Kunen's book and Birmingham's collection of writings from the underground student newspapers, oh, and probably the full side of Dylan songs on The Concert For Bangla Desh, in that whirlwind force-field I decided to become a writer.

Yellow Cracker School Days

My favorite cafeteria snacks were yellow crackers with the peanut butter filling... For variety, the orange crackers had yellow filling. These treats held together with preservatives and red dye No. 3.

Bullies

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth. Psalms 25:8 - For a while, anyway

Where Are You Tonight, Peggy Sue?

But here I am, in striped bell-bottom slacks, a tie-dyed shirt and long hair hiding any kind of collar – leaving the seeming safety of an institutional green homeroom for some unknown class.

Baton Twirler Band Parents Give Up Saturdays

It’s the parents who are sitting on heavy blankets, wearing thermal underwear, thermal socks, thermal neckwear, thermal hats and special gloves with places for shake-activated charcoal hand-warmers

High School Reunion Trepidation

Those last weeks of high school seemed nothing more than a blur of doing time to get the opportunity to get on with life. It was the sky-high toss of that  mortar board that signaled the beginning of real life.

Belleville School 10 students surprise native scribe

Visiting this elementary school after 45 years kindles memories and opens hatch for current batch of students to hear neighborhood history

Class Reunion: Catharsis, Closure or Both

I never had much love for school. I was ready to drop out in second grade but somehow hung in so I might enjoy going to high school class reunions.

Greetings from Belleville, New Jersey 

Anthony Buccino created a time machine through words and stories of growing up the 1950s, 1960s and beyond based on  life and growing up in Belleville, New Jersey. 

You don't have to be from New Jersey to enjoy this book, you just need an inclination to remember when chasing the mosquito man and his big blue DDT cloud was a great thrill for kids on their bikes or running in their Keds!

And who can forget the excitement on hearing the bells of the approaching ice cream truck to the neighborhood?

If you remember defrosting refrigerators or the simpler things of times past, you'll enjoy Buccino's essay collection.

More than forty essays and reflections on everything from junior high school bullies to selling pretzels for Ed Strat at Belleville High School football games at Municipal Stadium. This collection includes the Excellence in Journalism award-winning Don the TV man.

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