It was an ordinary day. Just made a trip to the Manheim Township Landis Run Intermediate School to drop off a box of sample yearbooks I had accumulated over the past 9 years. Ever since the school, which includes grades 5 and 6, opened I was responsible for completing the school yearbook. The school principal asked if I would be interested in working on the yearbook, since I had worked on the High School yearbook for over 30 years and after retiring from teaching at the high school, had worked on the Middle School yearbook for another 20 years.
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| The Landis Run Intermediate School |
The Landis Run Yearbook was only 64 pages in length, so I agreed to take over the book. Well, due to a few medical problems and the fact that the COVID-19 virus was still with us, I finally declined to do both the Middle School and Landis Run yearbooks this year. I had saved a copy of each yearbook I ever did and thought the two schools would appreciate having copies of the books to guide the new advisors in preparing a book for this school year. Well, today my worries became history when I read in the morning LNP newspaper that the Landis Run Intermediate School will temporarily shift to virtual instruction beginning today and running throughout the next week. This came from a directive from the State of Pennsylvania Department of Health.  |
| The cover of last year's yearbook |
The school spent the entire last year in virtual instruction with neither the students or the teachers favoring the procedure, but for safety's sake, they had to do so. Now it has struck again. This past week the district has experienced 24 cases of the virus with 11 of those cases being in the Landis Run Intermediate School. With 11 cases in one school, that can quickly spread and create medial problems for the students as well as the teachers and administration. Lucky for me that at the end of the last school year I notified both the Middle School and the Landis Run Intermediate School that I no longer would be doing either book. Was getting to be too much of a job for me having to travel to both schools a few times a week for candids and choir, orchestra, band, clubs, etc. photographs. And, since the school was going to be back to regular attendance instead of virtual attendance, I chose to give up the job I had loved for over 50 years. When I opened the newspaper yesterday I said to my wife, "Boy, did I make the right decision!" She looked at me as I continued with, "Landis Run is closing and going to a virtual schedule since they have too many COVID cases." Well, I wish the best for the school and hope they can stop the spread of the virus before it becomes a real threat to all the school buildings in the district. Perhaps if they ever give approval to vaccinate children as young as grade school (6 and above) they will be able to finally get back to normal and not have to worry about the spread of the disease. Years and years from now those who will have to go through another round of virtual learning will tell their children what it was like when they were in school and the COVID-19 took over their lives. But, for now...staying at home is the right thing to do! And, I am so glad I am not working on either book this year! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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