A “SOUR” NOTE
When we were in school in the mid 1950’s
to the mid 1960’s, we had to have a “Note
From Home” to do anything! For example: We needed a note to go “down
town”, a note to get just chili for lunch in the school cafeteria, a note
if we were sick, a note if we were “tardy” (why can’t schools just call
it “late”?), a note to get off the school bus at someone else’s house, a
note to get an abortion (Oh, my error, they don’t need a note for this
in today’s modern “schools”). “Oops! Pardon me, my politics are showing…”
a note to go on a school field trip,
a note to go to a doctor’s appointment, a music “note”, etc etc. I assume it had something to do
with the school’s liability or whatever. Some lucky
kids, who no doubt were born of royalty, got a note to go “down town” every “lunch hour” day! These few “Blue
Blood” kids were both envied and despised by all the rest of us “Peasant Kids.”
Tim and I rarely, if ever got a note
to go “down town”! (I just can’t imagine why…). Throughout grade school,
Tim and I constantly brooded about never getting a note to go “down town.” Such
a note for Tim and/or me was truly the “Holy Grail” to us (and just about as hard to get too)! One
day, however, my “salvation” came! One kid said when he gets a note to
“go downtown”, instead of giving it to the teacher, he just leaves it in his desk,
and if he ever gets “caught down town without a note”, he just pulls it
out of his desk and tells the teacher, “Oh, I forgot to give it to you this
morning”. BINGO! That sounded like a
stroke of genius to me! AHA! At last, I had a way to “beat the system”! After
MUCH begging, cajoling, and perseverance, and probably convincing my mother
that I needed to go “down town” at “lunch hour” because I had to give blood or
something, she FINALLY consented to give me a coveted “Note to Go
Downtown”!!! Yes! “The Holy Grail” was in my hands!!!!!! The next day’s “lunch hour”, after making
SURE I had socked the note deep inside my desk, I inhaled my lunch as fast as I
could (I could have finished much quicker if I had just chili, but I didn’t have a note)! I then started
walking “DOWN TOWN”!!! I felt a little queasy as I crossed the imaginary line
“off school property,” but after that gutsy move, I was “DOWN TOWN”!!! Since
there’s not a whole lot to do “down town” with a village population of 756 (6
years later in 1966 when I first noticed)! I just strutted around “down town”
“acting cool.” Then I went back just after the dreaded “Bell rang” and seconds
before the “Tardy (LATE!) Bell rang! I was just overflowing with “Warm Fuzzies”
and “Insolence” because I had “BEATEN THE SYSTEM,” and had “gotten away with
something,” Lil’ ole me! After a few days, I had “gotten hardened to the
system” and went “down town” EVERY “lunch hour”! After a week or so of this
newfound freedom, someone apparently had gotten suspicious! I, of ALL kids, was
not usually found “down town” EVERY day during “lunch hour” for at least a
week. On that last fitful day, I sat down at my desk after my “lunch hour” trek
“down town” and my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. HUTCHENS (of all
teachers!), firmly ask me, “Michael,
did you have a note to go “down town” this “Lunch hour”? To which I very
confidently replied, “Yes, I forgot to give you my note this morning”!
With a smirk, I confidently pulled out the note and gave it to her. She
scanned it and immediately said; “You come with me to Mrs. Allen’s Office (our
grade school principal) RIGHT NOW! My now horrified demeanor was wondering what
had possibly gone wrong! On the way up to Mrs. Allen’s Office, she showed me
the note. It had the permission date of the day I got the note, a week
or so earlier!!! WHOOPS, in my
excitement to “beat the system,” I had overlooked this complication! After I
got “swatted” by Mrs. Allen, she said, “I hope you’ve learned your lesson”!
I tacitly “learned my lesson” for sure, but not the one she meant. The “lesson”
I learned that day was: Parents
aren’t as dumb as you think they are!!!!!
