Let my people go.

A sure sign of becoming an Old Fart is reflecting on differences between us as kids and the current crop. A few of us were discussing how much more time off from school today's students seem to have. When I was a kid in elementary school--and junior high, too--holidays and other time off from school was rare. And I loved being out. I was not one of these overachieving kids who was all about school.

At some point lost to memory, the authorities felt school should start in the last week of August. I know those people all worked in air-conditioned offices. I know that because if they were sweating in classrooms like we were they, like me, would have been thinking only of the Labor Day Monday holiday. To a fifth-grader, that week or ten days waiting for the Big Friday was an eternity. And it came and went like Sherman through Georgia. Just one extra day off. Boom.

Kansas allowed us all the first Thursday and Friday in November off while the teachers all went to meetings of some mysterious nature. [We never found out what they talked about in those meetings. I always assumed they concerned helping teachers turn the screws down on us a little more for the rest of the year, now that they knew our names--or at least knew us by smell.] That was usually a great four-day weekend because the days were still warm, often so that you didn't need a jacket to be outdoors.

Once back inside the walls I instantly became consumed with the anticipation of the Thanksgiving break. The three weeks drug by painfully but at last we were dismissed on Wednesday afternoon. I was usually so excited about being school-free that it never occurred to me that I had to come back on the following Monday. The ensuing Sunday night was torture.

After the shock of resuming class, I took refuge in thoughts of Christmas Vacation [always capitalized, to me.] I would begin counting the days down on a calendar until school was out. Vacation was rarely more than 10 or 11 days but that was huge. Just being out that long was as important as Christmas itself. I can remember laying awake wondering what it would be like to walk out the door triumphantly on the last day, and by golly, it was something in life that actually lived up to the hype--second only to the last day of the school year in May. Leaving school that last afternoon, I was Halsey sailing into Tokyo Bay. I was Washington accepting the sword at Yorktown. It was a great moment.

But then came the hammer. Going back on January 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th was devastating, far worse than Monday after Thanksgiving. There was nothing, absolutely nothing on the horizon until Easter. A long, dark tunnel with three unbroken months of school. In those days there was no time off for Martin Luther King's birthday, or President's day. No Spring break. In our small town, no events of interest awaiting. Months of cold and grey skies lay ahead, but never even enough snow for a snow day. Life was reduced to going to school, taking out the trash, and as much television as possible to ease the pain.

Finally, we would be freed on Thursday before Easter for a four-day break. In Kansas, "Easter" and "Tornado Season" are usually synonymous so I was never assured of a quiet break but off was off. And we were off.

From then on, I knew I could make it. The days were longer and began to warm. We could be outdoors after school. The freedom of light jackets replaced the restrictions of heavy parkas. Even the teachers were weakening. And each day got us closer to the magic day in May when we picked up our report cards and told everyone good-bye for the summer. Yes, SUMMER! What comes around goes around. And I am sure there was some Old Fart watching me riding my bike downtown on a summer afternoon to visit Dad at his office, thinking to himself that kids sure had a lot of time off from school.