We went to the fall carnival at our grandchildren’s school last evening. I think it has probably been 30 years since I went to a school carnival, but it was immediately familiar to me. There was a raffle for baskets of goodies in the school gym. Classrooms had been cleared for games like ring toss, plinko, bean bag toss, and more. A box maze was set up in one corridor and there was an especially loud game where a pyramid of tin cans was collapsed by throwing bean bags in another. There wasn’t a cake walk, but the same rules were applied to a “junk food walk” where bags of candy and chips were offered as prizes. A volunteer spent the evening gathering cotton candy onto paper cones and there was a long line for that confection. There were excited children running in every direction, fueled by more sugar in one evening than their parents usually allow in a week.

I thought that it was probably age-related hearing loss that was making my head ring until I noticed that my kindergarten-aged granddaughter was standing in line with her hands held over her ears. It was pretty loud at the school. I’m guessing that the teachers noticed that it was considerable louder than a typical school day.

Standing in line, I had a chance to read the plaque that had been placed on the building following its most recent remodel. The small town once had an elementary school and a high school on that campus. After consolidation with a nearby school district, the building was remodeled into an elementary school and a covered outdoor play area was added. The gym that once had been a separate building between the two classroom buildings was connected to both with new offices and a library added. Most interesting on the plaque for me was the dates. The reason the school felt so familiar to me is that the last major remodel of the buildings occurred just before our children were born. The reason it looked like the school our kids attended is that it is of the same era. An entire generation has gone by and the district is struggling to maintain a building that keeps getting older and older.

Our next door neighbor to the east is an elementary gym teacher. He doesn’t teach at the school our grandkids attend. However, the school where he does teach is not far from our church and we drive by it on our way to the church. That school is in its first school year in a brand-new building. One of the last phases of the construction was the demolition of the old school building and the construction of a new playground in its place. The new school stands behind where the old one was located. We haven’t toured the interior of the new school yet, but The exterior of the building is designed to look a lot different from the standard institutional brick buildings where we and our children attended school.

There is nothing new about school districts making do with older buildings. The elementary school I attended added a classroom wing just before I began school. There have been no additions to the building since. My guess is that the classrooms are just a bit smaller than when I attended because of all of the layers of paint they have accumulated in the decades since. I haven’t been in that building for a very long time, but I guess that there have been some upgrades. Perhaps the old boiler has been replaced with something a bit more efficient. I’m guessing that the floor tiles have been covered with some different flooring.

Finding money for new school buildings is a challenge for any school district. Finding money for classroom essentials is a challenge. I’m not sure of the details, but I suspect that the proceeds from last night’s carnival went towards supplies that aren’t covered in the school district budget. The PTA volunteers seemed familiar and I know where the proceeds of our PTA were invested when I was active in the organization when our kids were in school.

The main purpose of a PTA carnival is not, however, fund-raising. It is community-building. On that score, I noticed that we weren’t the only grandparents following our grandchildren around their school. There were plenty of parents in attendance, but there also were a number of children whose grandparents were with them. Perhaps like our family the parents were busy at work, getting a meal on the table, caring for other children, or just sitting down and taking a load off of tired feet at the end of a long week while the grandparents braved the crowd of sugar-energized children to follow the children through the school carnival.

Our grandchildren emerged from the carnival with goodie bags filled with trinkets, pencils, gum, and candy. It is a foretaste of Monday evening when trick or treat will enable them to bring home far more candy than is usually present in their house. We noticed a few of the children and even some of the adults at the school carnival were wearing halloween costumes, though we didn’t feel the need to do so and the majority of those attending hadn’t dressed up in costumes.

Our grandson no longer attends that school. He has moved on to middle school and attends school a few miles down the road in a larger town. He enjoyed seeing a few of his old friends at the carnival, and his presence reminded us of how short the years of elementary school really are. Six years - Kindergarten through 5th grand and children move on to other adventures. Even though we have an infant grandson who is not yet a year old, all of our grandchildren will be through elementary school a decade from now.

Perhaps, with a bit of luck, their parents will one day get to attend a school carnival with their grandchildren. I recommend it. A bit of hearing protection may be in order, however.