Back-to-school time is bittersweet. There’s always a kind of poignancy to summer’s end—especially as we get older—but the heady anticipation of getting back to the classroom, seeing old friends and learning new things is powerful, too. “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall,” says Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby. I think most eager kiddos would agree.
I was thinking about The Great Gatsby recently, partly because I’m on a mission to watch all of Robert Redford’s filmography (which I somehow had missed until now); I caught his impossibly handsome 1974 version of Jay Gatsby on Netflix. But I also remember reading the novel in high school, like most American teenagers do. It was an assignment for one of my first “real” literature classes, and I fell head over heels in love with everything about it. I also had my first summer reading assignment that year, which made me feel very adult and collegiate. It was Thoreau’s Walden. Many of my classmates tossed it aside out of boredom after that infamous first chapter—“Economy”—but I was enthralled. I loved the careful record of Thoreau’s life in the woods. A cabin for 28 dollars and 12-and-a-half cents! What did he eat? What did he wear? How much did his pencils cost?
After all, it’s those little details, the simple objects and tasks of each day, that make up a life, or a summer, or eight months by Walden Pond.
August marks one of my favorite annual issues of Lake Minnetonka Magazine: our Prep Elite edition. On page XX, learn about four seniors, nominated by their schools’ administrators and faculty, who are jumping in with both feet to their last year of high school and getting ready for the great big world that lies beyond.
I think hope and optimism are best captured by 17-year-olds, don’t you? And I hope you find life starting all over again this fall.
Jennifer
Back-to-school time is bittersweet. There’s always a kind of poignancy to summer’s end—especially as we get older—but the heady anticipation of getting back to the classroom, seeing old friends and learning new things is powerful, too. “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall,” says Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby. I think most eager kiddos would agree.
I was thinking about The Great Gatsby recently, partly because I’m on a mission to watch all of Robert Redford’s filmography (which I somehow had missed until now); I caught his impossibly handsome 1974 version of Jay Gatsby on Netflix. But I also remember reading the novel in high school, like most American teenagers do. It was an assignment for one of my first “real” literature classes, and I fell head over heels in love with everything about it. I also had my first summer reading assignment that year, which made me feel very adult and collegiate. It was Thoreau’s Walden. Many of my classmates tossed it aside out of boredom after that infamous first chapter—“Economy”—but I was enthralled. I loved the careful record of Thoreau’s life in the woods. A cabin for 28 dollars and 12-and-a-half cents! What did he eat? What did he wear? How much did his pencils cost?
After all, it’s those little details, the simple objects and tasks of each day, that make up a life, or a summer, or eight months by Walden Pond.
August marks one of my favorite annual issues of Lake Minnetonka Magazine: our Prep Elite edition. Here, learn about four seniors, nominated by their schools’ administrators and faculty, who are jumping in with both feet to their last year of high school and getting ready for the great big world that lies beyond.
I think hope and optimism are best captured by 17-year-olds, don’t you? And I hope you find life starting all over again this fall.
Jennifer
