Is School Really Out For The Summer?

Present Day: June They are now graduates! “Just under an hour.,” Mr. Minor whispers to me. “Nice job!” With the band performing what I could only imagine is Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the senior class throws their collective caps in the air and begin to leave in single file to the recessional. This lasts for about ten seconds before they scatter like golden retriever puppies in all directions. For the next few minutes, students and staff could be seen embracing each other, some just a little longer than others, kissing, and holding hands making the alternate Board Attorney covering for this event cringe and shake her head. Our regular attorney never would have caught it. A few faculty members also took advantage of this time to slip their personal business cards to select students. The Board Attorney ran to her car, again shaking her head, while staring directly at the ground. We never saw her again. As the graduates and their families leave the stadium, the teachers and staff have already begun their celebratory pub crawl, aware that their last official day of the school year is tomorrow, beginning at 7:00 a.m. At the entrance to the parking lot, I can see a barricade of Band Parents selling 50/50 tickets to help raise funds for the Ave. Ridge Marching Band to compete in the Antarctica “Frozen In Time” Competition next spring…. Now that’s dedication! A few non-tenured staff shout to me, as I work my way back to the office, “Are you gonna’ join us, Principal Strat?” …. “Not this time.,” I said, and waved them on. Childhood Past: June – My Fifth Grade Summer “Joey! Joey Strat!,” my mother called out the front door. “Time for dinner!” I nodded to my friends and headed up the driveway on my red Schwinn Sting-Ray bike and parked it against the old oak tree by the back door. It was a Tuesday night so that meant Swanson TV dinners. As I peeled back the tin foil covering the chicken, peas and mashed potatoes I could hear ‘All My Loving’ by the Beatles playing on the RCA Hifi that was sitting proudly by the Zenith black and white television in the living room. My mother and father are big fans. My mother is in love with Paul McCartney. My father thinks John Lennon has all the talent. They were all right, I guess. But they couldn’t hold a candle to Herman’s Hermits. Tomorrow will be my last day of school as a fifth grader. I don’t know why we even bother to go in. It’s only for two hours and all of our books and supplies have already been collected. I think the principal just does it for spite. When dinner was over, my brothers and sister gathered in the living room for some TV time before going to bed. My mom and dad usually took this time to have a glass of wine around the dining table to catch up on the events of the day. Their go-to was the gallon jug of Gallo port. They joined us in the living room a short time later. When it was nine o’clock, my mom shouted, “Bedtime!” Since tomorrow was the last day of school, we went upstairs to our rooms to rush the start of the summer. I looked out my bedroom window at the neighborhood and saw the upstairs lights going out one after another at my friend’s houses. Although it was dark, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I opened the windows as wide as they would go and turned on my floor fan. The nights were getting hotter which was a sure sign summer was around the corner. I took the blanket off the bed and slipped under the cover sheet. It took a little while to fall sleep, but when I did, it was a deep sleep. Present Day: June I arrived early to school, as usual, carried in my Dunkin coffee and greeted the three veteran staff members I could always count on to be in the building at the crack of dawn. The remainder of the staff crawled in wondering if anyone would approach them prior to sobering up. Thirty-five percent of the students who made the attempt to come in for the last day of school arrived in spurts, minus the senior class. Well, that’s not entirely true. A hand full of graduates just had to make an appearance as “alumni.” In the main hallway, a random student groaned, “Is today really necessary!?” Other students and staff gave an understanding glance and nod. “Hey, the day counts,” I said to myself. In the back of my mind I thought, “If I have an evacuation drill then lock all the doors, I could take an early lunch.”