My granddaughter’s fifth grade class at Northeast Academy spent a day at Camp Hazen in Chester as their end of the school year activity. She told her parents she’d like to go to that camp this summer. I don’t blame her. I looked at the camp website and it reminded me very much of my days at Camp Wakenah in Salem, with a swimming dock and canoes lined up on the shore.

Groton Middle School held their first end of the year field day recently and they were fortunate that they had good weather. I remember the very first field day at what had recently become Fitch Middle School, when the town converted from the junior high to the middle school plan.

A committee of teachers put together a day of fun for the students, with the school divided into two teams – Blue and White. Students were asked to wear T-shirts of the appropriate color. Teachers followed their homerooms from one activity to another. Teachers without homerooms ran the activities. The most popular activity seemed to be the tug of war, with water games a close second. Everyone also liked kickball. In later years, one of the teachers brought in a long roll of plastic sheeting, which was placed on a slight slope and kept wet with a hose. Kids who wanted to take part changed into bathing suits and jumped onto the plastic, sliding to the bottom, which after a whie was pretty muddy. The end result was a lot of wet, dirty, happy kids. What could be better?

I had a seventh grade homeroom that first year and it included a large percentage of fair-skinned blondes. By about 10:30 or 11:00 I noticed that they were getting pretty pink. When I got a break I went up to Fort Hill Pharmacy and bought a bottle of sunscreen. When I got back I suggested some students might want to use it. Only years later did I learn that for good reason, sunscreen is handled the same as medicine and teachers can’t dispense it.

The middle schools also did end of the year trips. At Fitch we tended to take seventh graders to Ocean Beach. Teachers liked that destination since it was a short ride on a yellow bus.

On one visit our math teacher, who was quite an athlete, dived into the pool, did one lap, and headed straight for the hot showers. The water in the pool wasn’t much warmer than the water in the ocean! I was alerted that a boy in the shower had cut himself somehow and was bleeding a lot. I got him to the first aid station where they stopped the bleeding and put on a bandage.

I did have one good time while we were there. There was an arcade that the kids enjoyed and when I went in I found that it contained a few old pinball machines, which were operated with tokens. I always enjoyed pinball as a teen, so I bought a couple of tokens and took my turn, trying to jiggle the machine without tilting it. The attendant saw me enjoying myself and came over and gave me several tokens, bidding me to “have a good time.” I did.

Our eigth grade trip was originally to Six Flags and later to Lake Compounce, which is closer. In either event, the trip lasted longer and parents had to pick up their youngsters around 5:00. On these trips the students were divided into groups for checking in with their chaperone, though they were on their own between check-ins. We asked them to check in three times while we were there; at noon, two, and before our scheduled departure. One year my group consisted of about eight or 10, with most of them boys. The boys asked me what would happen if they were late for check-in. I jokingly told them pushups. They smiled and went off to have fun. As it happened, when it came time for the first check- in, several of the boys didn’t show until ten minutes after the scheduled time. (It took longer to get on one of the rides than they had figured on.)

I frowned at them and said, “You’re 10 minutes late!” at which point, on their own, they all started doing ten pushups. Just then another middle school was entering the park. I saw one of the new arrivals look at my boys and announce to his buddy, “Boy! I’m glad I don’t go to that school.”

On the way back to school from one of our trips to Lake Compounce our school bus broke down on Route 9. Another of our buses stopped and took a few of our kids who had to return to school for medical reasons, but most of us were stuck in the heat. Unfortunately, we were on a curve. I was a little nervous about that and called the State Police. The dispatcher sent a cruiser to park behind us with the lights going. I got off the bus and went back to talk to the trooper. When I returned, our young, single, female intern asked me, “Is he cute?” I explained that I didn’t really notice, but I told her, “I saw his nametag. He’s Irish.”

I then spoke to the students: “I know none of you have cell phones with you because that’s against the rules. If you did, you’d be able to call your parents and tell them that we’re going to be at least a half-hour late.” Then I stepped off the bus.

End of the year trips can be fun, but my advice is that if you’re going any further than New London, get a charter bus!

Robert F. Welt is a retired Groton Public Schools teacher who lives in Mystic.