Back to School Ad – Sept. 3, 1956

We'll close out the week with a final Back to School ad, since today is the first day of school for the daughter of a woman I work with. The daughter is starting kindergarten in the Firelands school system. It's an odd day to start, right before the long holiday. But I guess it's the school officials' way of slowly easing the new students into something that's going to take up the next twelve years of their young lives.

Speaking of kindergarten, I wonder if the kids still have to bring a mat to school to sleep on? During my kindergarten class at Charleston Elementary, I remember having a nap time in a darkened room. We talked about this at work the other day, and my co-worker (who is in her early thirties) Googled it, and determined that nap breaks are a thing of the past. 

Anyway, this Back to School ad is sponsored by the Lorain County Deputies Association. It ran in the Lorain Journal on September 3, 1956 and features some great clip art of kids and a policeman.

Although there's no Grim Reaper illustration, the tagline in the ad is still rather jarring: Don't Meet Your Maker By Accident. It also doesn't make a lot of sense, since the goal of the ad is to keep drivers from running over kids.

At least the little cartoons on the right side of the ad still pack an important message in as capsule format, seventy years after the ad was published. 

It's always surprising to see drivers confused as to whether or not they have to stop for a school bus that is picking up or dropping off kids in the opposite direction on a four lane highway like Liberty Avenue (US 6) in Vermilion. 

The answer? They don't. The kids are never put in the position of having to cross a four lane highway.

But many drivers stop anyways and are shocked when I don't. 

The traffic person (Jamie Sullivan) on Channel 19 News used to review this issue every year when school started, to try and eliminate the confusion, and I think it was a very good idea.