It’s summer in the Ohio Valley! And kids are already back in school.

The season has flown by so quickly this year that it has left my head spinning. But here we are in mid-August. Students returned to class in some local districts as early as this past Thursday, with football teams hitting the gridiron on Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday afternoon. It doesn’t seem possible, yet here we are.

When it was time for me to head back to school each year, I recall that Mom would pull out a box that she had tucked away in May and assess what school supplies I had left over from the previous year. If I still had pencils that were unsharpened or only half used, they went back to class with me. Same thing with my third of a bottle of Elmer’s glue and the safety scissors I had probably outgrown. I used the same pencil box year after year until at least the fifth grade (it was dark blue with a Holly Hobby sticker on top). Notebooks that still contained plenty of sheets of paper were recycled as well.

If I needed them, I would get a new 64-pack of crayons (with a built-in sharpener), folders and maybe a new backpack. If I wanted stickers to decorate my paper bag book covers, I had to buy those with my own money.

Nowadays, school supply lists look much different. Sure, kids still need pencils, crayons, scissors and glue, but their needs now are much more complex.

Looking at the second grade supply list for Union Local, for example, I came across some electronics. Today they need headphones and a wireless mouse. Students of various ages in local districts also are asked to bring supplies such as Clorox disinfecting wipes, their own tissues and plastic bags with zip closures for storage.

Headphones, of all things, seem to be a classroom staple these days. Kids of all ages need them, according to various supply lists that I found online. That is quite a change from the days when I was in school. If you had headphones, you probably weren’t allowed to take them to school; if you did, you would only have been allowed to use them during recess, and they would have required additional, bulky equipment.

The older students are, the more complicated the supply lists become. Some require specific types of markers or fine tip pens. The electronics get more advanced with students’ ages as well. It seems they are ready to transition from headphones to ear buds in middle school.

But school supplies aren’t the only things that have become more elaborate or complex. Life, overall, is more complicated for youngsters today than it was in the 20th century. For people my age, it was not uncommon for us to have a key to our house (or to know where to find one that had been hidden). Often, we would arrive at home to find our parents were not yet there. For me, this occurred frequently by the time I was a fifth-grader.

It wasn’t much of a concern, though. I knew how to be safe at home alone, and I knew all of our neighbors. So, if I really needed an adult I knew where to find one quickly, and my parents were confident that anyone in the neighborhood who I approached for help would provide it.

These days, kids rarely walk to and from school or ride their bike to class. And it is unheard of for children to be left alone at such young ages.

Although they have many advantages and access to tools that we could not have imagined at their age, I sometimes feel sorry for kids, especially those of elementary and middle school age. They will never know the kind of freedom that we experienced when we stayed out until the street lights came on or were able to ride our bikes from town to town.

Sure, they have their own cellphones and iPads and access to watch anything we can dream of through streaming services, but what about just being a part of the real world? I think they are missing out on making connections with nature and on learning to solve problems independently.

When I was in junior high, for instance, I had a tire on my bike blow out when I was riding on a dirt road in the middle of “nowhere” between Belmont and Bethesda. I didn’t have a cellphone. There was no way to call for help. I wasn’t about to abandon my bike, so I picked it up, balanced it on my shoulder and made the long, slow walk home. It wasn’t an innovative solution, but I didn’t panic and had the determination to get the job done. I’m not so sure most kids today have the chance to discover that about themselves.

Here’s hooping that I am wrong about that.

Although I don’t want summer to end, I wish all of out local students a successful and enjoyable school year.

Good luck!