The summer is wound down and the new school year has begun. As a child I always looked forward to a new school year with great anticipation. Back in the dark ages when I was a schoolgirl, school always began the week after Labor Day.

This year Labor Day, the last holiday week of the summer, falls almost three full weeks after school starts.

At the new teacher's luncheon, I enjoyed sitting with Dr. Cici Massetti from the Madera County Office of Education.

As with many other lifelong Madera residents, my path and Dr. Massetti's has passed one another many times. I fondly remember her mother Evelyn Massetti, who taught English at Madera High School when I was a student there. Mrs. Massetti was a classic example of a highly educated, strong personality woman. She has always made my short list of local women whose services I would want to enlist should I ever need to put together a fantasy all-female army to take over the world.

A few years after I graduated from high school, I went to work for the Massetti family at Madera Radio Dispatch. What a nice family to work for. I was hired by her brother Jim, who with their brother Fred and father Fred Sr. operated the family answering service.

I asked Cici why school starts so much earlier now than it did when we were in school. She opined it might be because of the harvest schedule. So many children used to work in the fields that school was started later to accommodate the harvest.

That makes sense. I remember one year, I was maybe in the third or fourth grade and school was delayed a week because of the grape harvest.

I don't know how many kids still go to work in the fields with their families. I'm pretty sure the child labor laws are such that it is no doubt discouraged, if not downright illegal, for children to work in the fields.

I have mixed feeling about this. On the surface it appears that children working in the hot sun from dawn to dusk is a daunting image. The flip side of the equation, however, is that children who must work in the fields will get a taste of what unskilled labor looks and feels like.

Is there any better example for the desperate need to stay in school, get an education and train for skilled labor jobs, than working in the fields?

I remember hearing stories from my folks about picking grapes and cotton during harvest. Working in the fields were one of the ways my parents and brothers earned extra money for school clothes. A lot of families took to the fields during the harvest season.

Teaching young people the value of hard work is a job that needs the participation of teachers, parents and other adult friends and relatives. The 4-H Club, FFA, Boy and Girl scout and Camp Fire leaders, just to name a few, pass on the skills of sewing, cooking and animal husbandry to many of the children in our community.

With school starting remember to slow down while driving because cross-town traffic is about to increase dramatically. Madera's considerable pedestrian traffic will have throngs of students joining the parade. Allow yourself a little extra time to get where you're going if it is important to be on time. It is always better to show up a little late than to be involved in a traffic collision.
Tami Jo Nix is a senior staff writer, photographer and community / features writer for the Madera Tribune. You can contact Tami Jo at 559.674.8134 ext. 231 or e-mail at tamijo (at) maderatribune.net