School's Out

Oh, man, how I've longed for this day. Freedom. Pure, lovely, unadulterated freedom. A breath of fresh air, if only for 80 days or so. The prison door is nearly open and will clang shut behind me in less than three hours. Liberation never tasted so sweet. In the immortal words of Alice Cooper, "...out for summer, out 'til fall, we might not go back at all..."

I used to feel that way about school closing. John Gonzalez, Alan Ruddy and I would count the days like a castaway on a desert island. We'd play for those 80+ days like we were wild banshees. There was no tomorrow. Now, sometimes I wish there were no tomorrow. Every day is the same now. The prison door hardly ever opens, and then only in minute 2-day respites that somehow only serve to only make the first day back all the worse.

Today, as you may have guessed, is the last day of school. Summer vacation starts at 3:40pm. It starts, that is, for the kids. For those of us working grunts, it never really does. Nowadays I have to confine myself to having adventures in the copy room or in the cafeteria. No more pirates in the new framed house in the back lot. No more haunted houses across the street. No more sitting in the treehouse reading Superman comics and Street and Smith's baseball yearbook. Those days have disappeared into the ethereal past like doubleheaders at Yankee Stadium.

I'm going to play this summer a little differently than I've played all of my other adult summers. This year I'm going to do all of those things again...with my own kids. I mean, come on. They're kids, right? They instinctively know how to have fun. Let them dictate. Go out and hit? Sure! Lay on the hammock? You bet! Play with the American Girl dolls? I'd be happy to. What better way to have fun? Now I've just got to convince my little girl that pirates are a better source of enjoyment than are the dolls. But it shouldn't be too hard. She already likes Cap'n Crunch.

Pass that Superman comic, will you?