Class Trip to FDR Home and the Culinary Institute of America

     Last week my twelve-year-old daughter, Charista, asked me to chaperone her seventh grade class trip. At first mention, the thought of a 6-hour round-trip bus ride with 75 middle-schoolers to Poughkeepsie, New York was the least appealing way for me to spend an entire Wednesday. And the tear-off permission slip made note that the bus would depart from the school promptly at 6:30 AM and would return approximately twelve hours later.  But of course her big, beautiful, pleading brown eyes won. How bad can a visit to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's home be, with lunch at the Culinary Institute of America?

    
      The alarm the morning of the trip rang at 5 AM and for the next hour, Charista ironed her hair, packed some snacks (she handed me a Ziploc bag of mini-pretzels in the car), carefully selected the clothes she'd wear in lieu of her uniform day and applied lip gloss carefully, because it was the onlymakeup I've reluctantly allowed her to start wearing. 

    

     It was a torrentially rainy morning and we parked across the street from her private school. We plucked out two giant golf umbrellas from the trunk, underneath the sedementary layers of tennis rackets, cases of bottled water, and folding beach chairs I use to watch her twin sisters' soccer games. 

      Disheveled and stressed, I was politely urged by Charista to hurry it up, play real-life Frogger across the four-lane boulevard, and get on the bus, as her friends had been texting her for the last few minutes that we were the last two to arrive.  Charista was probably thinking I was a slow-poke, but she was kind to her dear, old Mom, as always, and we crossed the street, holding hands and embarked the luxury bus to Hyde Park. 

      Charista has enjoyed a growth spurt recently, and was taller than I now, when I'm not wearing my standard four-inch heels, and soon I'm sure she'll surpass my 5'5" stature (to come to think of it, my heels get taller as she gets taller).  At the top of the stairs of the bus, we said hello to our friends in the first few rows and before I could say, "Can you believe the weather we're having," Charista spotted her friends, sprinted to the back of the bus, and disappeared into the gaggle of excited tweeners. I was left to sit by myself in a two-person row, close enough to the other moms to make pleasant chit-chat, but far away from them enough to daydream when the mood hit me. The day was looking up!

     
     As I stared out my window, flashbacks abounded.  This coming September, Charista would be in the eighth grade. She recently started review class for the Catholic High School entrance exams.  She had been "promoted" to the Senior2 from Junior1 division of swimmers at her city-wide swim team, and had been getting some attention from young men in her class and in her social circles, all the while maintaining an A+ average. 

     But in my heart, she will always be the little 7 lb. 4oz newborn the nurse handed to me when she was born twleve years ago, swaddled in the hospital-issued baby blanket, strawberry blonde hair and green eyes so beautiful. 

     Fast forward to 2012. Charista texts non-stop, takes pride in the kindness she shows her sisters and her friends, loves some guy name Harry Styles of One Direction fame, and is very sensitive and emotional, much like her mom.

     She is a happy child, of which I am proud, and she and her sisters make me laugh every single day of my life. They also cause other emotions, too, but I'll leave that for another blog post. She had recently said to me that I am one of the few people who gets her sense of humor, and I loved hearing that, because I've told her (and I mean it) that were she not my daughter, she would be my best friend.

     One particular memory of her Charista and her friends popped into my mind on the road to Poughkeepsie that morning.  I remembered when they were in the first grade and the big event for the students that year was a "Thanksgiving Feast" in their classroom right before the holiday break. 

     The moms who agreed to chaperone that Thanksgiving party were asked to dress up as Indians or Pilgrims.  I was a Pilgrim.  I looked ridiculous. I had scoured the internet for a Pilgrim costume that was not befitting of a Hugh Hefner Grotto Party and found a particularly boring one, with my giant shoe buckles and black and white skirt and apron and some sort of Pilgrim hat that barely covered my large head. 

     But the children were delighted, especially Charista, who took me by the hand as soon as I entered the door, excited to introduce me to her little 6-year-old pals. Charista was only 5-years-old at the time, because she skipped Pre-K under the advisement of the school admisinstration who tested her during the application process when she transferred over from another pre-school.

     Anyway, I stood there, dressed as a Pilgrim, as my eldest daughter rattled off the name of a dozen friends.  I don't clearly remember any of them. What I did memorize was the feeling of her tiny, 5-year-old hand in mine.

    

     Ok, so, back to the party. The children lined up patiently that day for a turn with a cooking brush to "baste" a poster-sized picture of a turkey tacked on the wall.  This was after they "sprinkled" feather seasonings on a rubber chicken on the teacher's desk, and formed a circle around their teacher to hear about the first Thanksgiving after a long, harsh winter. They said grace and feasted on pumpkin pie that I had brought. To say they were the cutest kids ever is an understatement in my memory.

     So we stepped off the bus in beautiful Hudson County, finally. Keeping up with Charista and her fresh-faced, fashionable, and well-mannered seventh-grade friends was a challenge. They travelled at lightning speed, darting from one exhibit to another.

     They enjoyed the documentary movie of FDR as a family man, and relished each other's company, all the while tolerating my requests to photograph them throughout the day, with both my iPhone and my "real" camera.  I was impressed that Charista was not embarrassed that I wore my Canon DSLR around my neck for the entirety of the trip.  I imagine another child would've rather died than be seen with her mother, snapping away, like a dorky tourist. I was proud of her.

     When a photo-op arose every few yards and I asked Charista and her friends to pose, they knew exactly which angle to turn, and how big to smile, where to place their hands and how high to tilt their chins. They knew precisely how to maximize their beauty for the camera. Impressive! 

     With the advent of the now-ubiquitous iPhone, these young ladies had taken a picture or two before. They also knew that instantly their photos would be uploaded to Facebook and Instagram by their friends on that trip within minutes. And I personally subscribe to the fact that everyone has a good side and a bad side.  These girls had figured it out but good.

     The tour wore on.  They were reflective in learning about FDR, and when they were asked by the tour guide who the other two United States Presidents were who were considered the best in American history, they answered George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

    
     Charista was amazed to find out that FDR had polio and that it had been such a common disease afflicting children in the 1930's and 1940's, before Jonas Salk had invented the polio vaccine.  She was surprised to hear that FDR had started the March of Dimes, after opening up his home in Georgia and its swimming pool as a rehab facility for children with polio.

     She was interested that he then started a national campaign for Americans to each donate a dime to help fund the battle against polio, thus earning his image on the American dime. I was personally surprised myself. I always thought it was Harry Truman.

     The lunch later that afternoon was quite delightful at the Culinary Institute of America and gave me a chance to talk to the other moms who were chaperoning the trip, comparing notes as to the types of reviews our children were taking for the specialized high school test, what our summer plans were, how many hours we allowed our thirteen-year-olds on social networking sites.

     The food was remarkably good and my glass of Chardonnay was excellent. The entire two hours were spent smiling and nodding and chewing, all the while keeping an eye on Charista and where she was sitting and with whom she was engaging in conversation, as she had a couple of faculty at her table. I try not to be too obvious and quickly look away when she glances my direction, but she knows I was watching. I'll always be watching.  She may be taller than I, but she is still my baby, after all.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    
Here are some of the images I captured that wonderful day I spent with my eldest daughter, chaperoning her 7th grade class trip.  Please note the first three are photographs I took of reproductions found in the FDR library, Hyde Park, NY.