Boots and Blacktop Explained

I have just started this blog after doing some writing and looking for a way to get it off of my screen and into the world.  The topics will vary, but I started out writing about motorcycle trips and that is where the name of the blog originated.  It also seemed to fit well with the my website, Boots and Blacktop.  The story of how I came up with the website name is a little odd, though.

I was a Catholic school principal for 21 years and retired in June, 2014.  The job is not for everyone, but most of my days were very enjoyable.  One of the most interesting facets of the job is the variety of decisions a principal has to make each day.

The colleges and universities that offer degrees in Educational Administration work hard to prepare people for the job.  There are classes on curriculum development, teacher evaluation and governance.  All of those topics are important and time spent talking about them and discussing them is time well spent.  But there is no class on what to wear at recess.

Actually, there were no classes on recess.  But if you are going to be an elementary school principal, you are going to learn a lot about recess.  There are recess schedules for students and teachers.  There are rules for younger students and rules for older students.  There are warm weather rules and cold weather rules.  There are rules for inside recess during inclement weather.  You will need new recess equipment now and then. Which class gets to use the new equipment?  How about specific areas of the playground?  Who gets the big field today?  Who gets the soccer field?  Can we play dodgeball?

Once that is all settled, you get to clothing.  In the north country, where we experience the curiously treasured "change of seasons", this is a major issue.  Once the snow covered the playground my school had a jacket, snowpants, and boots policy.  That meant the students wore all of that every day for every outdoor recess.  But then the snow would begin to melt and the weather would warm a bit.  At that time it would make sense to allow some leniency to this policy.  Generally, the first thing that could be deemed unnecessary would be the snowpants.  But this would only be if the students stayed off the wet, mushy, still somewhat snowy grass.  They would be able to play in the church parking lot if they just wore their jackets and boots.

So one day, after being asked about the attire for the day a few times, I responded with, "Boots and blacktop."  By this time everyone in the school knew what this meant.  I thought it sounded like a good title for something, and as long as I was thinking about setting up a website, Boots and Blacktop it was.