In the Meantime

          School supplies have a unique smell and stores every where sell everything a child needs at this time of year--crates of Star Wars folders, aisles bulging with Disney lunch bags, and huge boxes of Crayolas along with all the other trappings needed for a modern education. I stand, blocking an aisle no doubt, and I am flooded with memories of my own elementary school days at Ralph Waldo Emerson School, Quincy, Illinois.       Emerson School took up half a city block.  It was formidable.  It looked like it meant business.  All five of my older brothers and sisters learned how to read (Dick, Jane and Sally), write, and generally received the education provided in the forties and fifties in the very same building I did. When my turn came, it was love at first sight.  A short walk along 14th street, past the ever mindful patrol boy at Washington Street, and I would arrive.      Class rooms appe...