Schools Out, Schools Out,

School’s out! School’s out! Teacher wore her paddle out! That glorious, wondrous, magical day is second only to Christmas for children and teachers. It’s the day to clean out lockers and leave everything you don’t want in a growing, smelly pile in the middle of the locker; when classrooms jumble with “Things to keep and things to throw away and books that go back to the library and ...” Loud voices in the halls as “students” morph into “ little kids” and the school year draws to a close.

We looked forward to three months of freedom. An opportunity to mow lawns, collect coke bottles, pull weeds for the neighbors flower beds. We were willing to do almost anything to earn some extra pocket money to help us have a better Summer out of school.

We could catch lighting bugs in a jar, play hiding seek in the dark, ride our bicycles just about anywhere. We could play in the creek, swim at the lake, sleep over at our friends house. How about going camping?

We even worked in the garden and the work didn't seem so hard because we were out of school.

This was also our free time to have a family vacation and to visit with our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who lived out of town.

Yes, we still had to do our chores at home and make up out bed and cut our own yard, but ever how you looked at it, it was still summer and freedom from school and homework.