School Trips Part One

     For many children, the school trip was one of the few times they had to see the world beyond their hometown. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case for me because my parents did take my brothers and me to different places in the area as well as different vacations in the USA and Canada. Nevertheless, my first school trip, in 1960, was in nursery school when some members of the school staff took us to Berlin Park, Berlin, NJ, for a few hours. I think part of the purpose was to teach us patience and to wait our turn to ride the swings and sliding board as well as to enjoy the outdoors and nature.

     The following year, 1961, the staff of the nursery school took us to Cooper River Park, Cherry Hill, NJ. Although this park didn’t have swings and a sliding board, we did picnic, take a nature tour, and tossed a beach ball in a game of dodgeball.

     For the spring of 1962, I was in public school in kindergarten, and the school staff and our teacher took us on a train ride from a station in Lindenwold to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. The sights to see on the train proved interesting for most of the students, and once at 30th Street Station, somebody from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company took us on a quick tour of the station. Then we had a quick snack before another train took us back to Lindenwold. (Back in the early 1960s, Pennsylvania Railroad was in business. By the mid-1960’s, due to increased travel by air, Pennsylvania Railroad merged with New York Central and became Penn-Central. Air travel, however, still caused a decrease in long-distance train travel so much that by 1971, the US Government bought out most private train companies, including Penn-Central, and the whole system became Amtrak.)

     I started attending St. Lawrence RC School in first grade, and in the spring of 1963, our first-grade classes boarded busses to take us to the Philadelphia International Airport for a few hours. The first thing that amazed us was the size of the different aircraft. For some of the students, this was the first time they ever saw a jet or a large prop plane. (Keep in mind that in 1963, large meant a Boeing 707, and the whole airport back then was about the size that Terminal B is today.) It was definitely a first for me when we boarded a 707 because I had never been on a plane before. While the plane didn’t take off and fly, a flight attendant (called a “stewardess” back then) explained the different features of this jet to us while we sat in the seats of this aircraft. After this, we boarded our busses to go back to NJ.

     To be continued....