So I was driving home last night from work and passed in front of Plain Elementary on Neely Ferry Rd. just around the corner from my house and realized that yesterday was the greatest day of all days except for Christmas on an annual basis from the ages of 5 to let's say 17 or 18 yrs. old.
Yesterday was the last day of school for the elementary, middle and high school kids in Greenville County. It made me smile as I drove by and flashbacked to the positive memories of that last day of school way back in 1967 at Bannantyne Elementary in Verdun to 1979 when I graduated from WLHS in Chomedey.
Back then in the olden days (haha) we didn't have three half days of school to end the year like they do here. We had full days and let me tell you that last day of school for the year was most likely the longest day ever in the annals of childhood. In those days each classroom had a large clock and I swear that the second hand on that clock was going backwards. It felt like the day would never end.
In 1972, Vincent Furnier along with four other men living near the Motor City penned the ultimate paean to the end of the school year. Yes that was the year that "School's Out" was released by the Alice Cooper Band. That song became the end of school year anthem for the rest of my elementary and high school days. I know that this song is as relevant today as it was back then. Not sure if today's students even know of it though given the crap I hear coming from people's cars these days. Yeah yeah I am getting old. Whatever!
The last day of school signified about 10 weeks of sleeping in, staying up late, playing pick-up baseball games at Montcalm Park or going to the public pool that they had there. It was time for bike rides and three hour games of hide and seek. It was time to play Strat-O-Matic or Risk and use the ultimate strategic flip of the board game when Kamchatka was about to invaded and you were heading to an inglorious defeat. It was time to listen to CHOM and call-in incessantly trying to reach a deejay to play your favorite song. We had rotary phones. Speed dials didn't exist. It was time to listen to Russ Taylor and Dave Van Horne on CFCF radio for the Expos games. It was a time of year that the only work or chore obligations I had was delivering the Montreal Star in the late afternoon and bringing my youngest brother (Rene) to the park. It was the time of the year to hang out on the Levitt's porch or the Voronoff's porch on Parkway Drive for hours on end and debate sports as if our lives depended on it.
It was bliss and it was the end of the school year until the Tuesday after Labor Day. The good old days when being grown-up didn't seem like all that much fun as it involved going to work and not having ten weeks off. Ha!
Peace out rock and rollers and don't forget to have your pets neutered. LOL.
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