It was "back to school" day a few days ago and that had me remembering one of my first days back at school. I'm sure it would not have stuck in my mind if it were not for a particular pair of underwear.

When I was young, our family lived on a lake next to a sawmill. The town proper or 'up town' as we called it, was some distance away and that's where the company store, school, church and a number of other houses were located. In between up town and our house were numerous intersecting roads serving the needs of the bustling sawmill industry that included a planer and sawmill, stables, blacksmith shops, bunkhouses, extensive lumber yards and all manner of vehicular traffic.

When my brother reached school age, the busy 'no man's land' stood between him and his education and it was obvious something had to be done. Driving the little scholar to school was out of the question so my mother and teacher came up with a brilliant solution. His younger brother, me, would start school a year early so they could both walk the dangerous roads together. I was only four years old but the decision was made and I was off to school.

There was no elementary school in town; just a makeshift classroom pulled together in a building called the cook house. At first light this whitewashed building hummed with the activity of workmen from nearby bunkhouses eating their morning meal before heading out to the mill, or the bush. By the time school began, desks stood in rows in the spacious room and it resembled a classroom except for the tantalizing smells coming from the cook's kitchen at the back.

I can't remember many details about my first day but I do remember some. I recall the warm sun of early September dancing on the doorsill while inside several rows of children fidgeted in relative darkness. The cook house windows, high up the wall and multi-paned, were not designed to let in much light. I also remember how odd it was to sit in a row where all I could see was the child's head in front of me. It was a strange game indeed. I also remember my underwear.

It's a fact of life that no matter how old a person is, poorly designed underwear are bothersome especially underwear that don't do what they're supposed to do which is keep things in. I was wearing just such a pair of underwear on my first day of school. And being very young, when the underwear in question began acting up, I had no qualms about taking steps to adjust them. Thus I began tugging at the front of my pants from time to time in order to align material and person so that there wasn't that 'somewhere in the middle' feeling. This tug of war went on for some time and finally caught the teacher's attention.

'Maybe you'd like to go out to the washroom,' the teacher offered gently, gesturing toward the door. It wasn't a washroom I needed but when you're four years old it's rare to engage in long dissertations on such things as the design of underwear, so I sat mute. As the teacher's kind gaze seemed fixed on me I avoided her eyes and looked past her to the spot where the September sunlight was dancing on the doorsill. I stood up and silently walked out the door to the bright world outside.

Down the steps I went and wandered toward the outdoor toilet. The washroom was a small, slightly leaning, one-hole privy on the other side of the road under a magnificent white pine tree. I was familiar with this giant tree having walked under it with my mother on the way to the store. It was summer then and we paused to look at several young Blackbirds that fell, or were pushed, from a nest above and had died on impact. There were no Blackbirds in the tree today, only the wind. The great outstretched limbs of the pine swayed above me and the long needles whispered softly. Black grasshoppers clicked in the warm air above the dusty road.

I stood outside for some time listening and watching the autumn world. Then with one last tug and twist to align my garments, I turned and walked as resolutely as a four year old can do, back up the steps and into the darkened, silent school room.