Dear Bank of Prairie Village Clients ~
I have always viewed August as a transition month. For many families, including the extended grandparents, August is Back-to- School time! This could include Kindergarten, Grade School, Middle School, High School, College, and Graduate degrees.
Concurrent to the Back-to-School phenomenon is the commotion of new school clothes, new supplies, new teachers, new classmates, new classrooms, and possibly new schools. For some, first time colleges with new roommates.
For football, it is new teams, new starters, new schedules, often new coaches, and now the realignment into new leagues.
In short, the whole “Back-to-School” phenomenon creates a great deal of positive energy.
Juxtaposed to the August “Back- to-School” energy are the “Goodbyes of Summer.” The “Goodbyes” to the pool, summer playmates, summer teammates, summer co-workers, summer vacation friends, summer cabins, and all the various summer rituals.
It’s kind of like the old song, “Hello, Goodbye, I Must be Going.”
In my brain “School” officially starts after Labor Day – and Summer officially ends only then. In my brain “Summer” and “Back-to- School” are two very delineated bookends to two very distinct mindsets.
However, this bookend delineation of “Goodbye to Summer Memories” and “Hello to Back-to-School Excitement” resides only in my brain. The “real world” is a much more blended swirl of each mindset.
I have learned the hard way, failing to take seriously those first weeks of classes – just as I have learned the hard way in business to avoid staying in a Summer mindset mode after school starts up. Right now, I am stuck in the rut of only being able to ride only one escalator direction at a time.
Perhaps someday, I will manage the art of fully enjoying Summer all the way through Labor Day – while also comfortably mastering all the Back-to-School race excitement. I am sure there is a learnable knack to gracefully stepping from the “End of Summer Down Ramp” while simultaneously stepping onto the “Back- to-School Excitement Up Ramp.”
In the interim, I know that sometime in mid-August my leisurely drive for morning coffee will suddenly come to a halting end as I find myself inadvertently in the middle of a long, school carpool lane.
I also know my summer afternoon thirsty search for kids manning their front yard lemonade stands will be suddenly replaced by my frantic lookouts to avoid racing children under backpacks skipping home anxious to bring all the news of their first back-to-school day!
It is always bittersweet saying goodbye to Summer – yes, even to those weeklong weather forecasts of 100 degree afternoon temperatures. However, the loss of those “Lazy Summer Days,” is equally tempered by watching the sheer joy of the youth’s “Back-to-School Enthusiasm.”
It is the recent “Summer Memories” combined with the “Back-to-School Excitement” that makes August such an interesting transition month.
Perhaps I should view August not as requiring a clear beginning and end, but more like the “gooey mix of melted chocolate and warm marshmallows scrunched between the two graham crackers of a Campfire S’more.” Under this “melted-to-perfection mindset” August provides us with many Summer memories on which to reflect while at the same time providing both the anticipation and excitement of our “proverbial New School Year Ahead.”
For each of us, let’s make this our “Best School Year” yet. To enjoying the Journey ~ Upward and onward for 2022!
Dan Bolen ~ Chairman
Bank of Prairie Village
913~707~3369 Cell
Dan.Bolen@BankofPrairieVillage.com
“The Bank of Prairie Village ~ Home of Blue Lion Banking”~ cited March 2020 and~ again in April 2021 & April 2022 by the Kansas City Business Journal as one of the “Safest Banks in Kansas City for Your Money.”
