I guess it's a sign of the times: Accompanying the children on my daughter's fourth-grade field trip yesterday -- in addition to teachers, aides, and me and the other class moms -- was a nurse whose job it was to administer the midday meds. It makes sense, I guess; a need for medication does not go away when the school building does, and if the teachers aren't allowed to administer at school they shouldn't have to do it in the field. But it seemed odd all the same to have a traveling pharmacy aboard the bus. The woman was not the normal school nurse (who presumably had to stay behind to do med duty for the non-field-trip-going masses), and so she went around introducing herself to each class so the kids who needed to find her at noon would know who to look for.

 

The trip was to a historical park, where we toured houses from the 1870s and learned from costumed presenters what life was like way back when. One of the stops was an apothecary's shop, and while the woman behind the counter talked to kids about more primitive meds, I took a look at the barber shop display on the other side of the room. I enjoyed the sign that gave the prices for haircuts: men, 10 cents; boys, 8 cents; and wiggly boys, 9 cents. Never did find out how much the apothecary charged wiggly boys. Or whether she went on field trips, too.