No more teachers, no more books...

It must be the end of the school year, because I heard "School's Out" by Alice Cooper twice this morning on my way to work. And this was on the soft rock stations that usually wouldn't be playing Alice Cooper.

Boy, that brings me back.

Those last few hours of a school year before that final bell rang? That was the definition of tension. Even moreso than Christmas Eve, I'd wager, for a child of that age. Sure Christmas was great, what with presents and all, but it was one day. Summer vacation was 2 and 1/2 months. Had the movie been out at that time, I'm sure we kids would have been yelling "FREEEEDOMMMMM!!!" like Mel Gibson and leading a charge of grammar school kids through the halls like a rampage of angry Scotsmen when that final bell rang.

As I recall, the teachers did their level best to keep us orderly up to and after that final bell rang. But that containment lasted exactly as long as it took us to get out the door. Upon that first step into the school parking lot, it was a free-for-all. I imagine that's what a prison break must look like.

And although, looking back at it objectively, a childhood summer, though largely magical, also had its fair share of slow times, of, dare I say it?, boredom. But back then, that never crossed your thoughts, because the beginning of every summer was pregnant with possibility. Looking back, it's history; looking forward it was mystery.

There's nothing in a grown up life (that I've found, anyway) that compares. Sure we get our few weeks vacation from our jobs, but nothing like the feeling of that summer vacation. With a child's concept of time those two and half months might as well have been eternity. It's a sad fact that taking a vacation nowadays, even before it begins, is often beset with thoughts of "Damn, I'm going to have 200 emails to sort through when I get back," or "I have to remember to pay the rent before I go."

It's not quite the same.