Forget Snow Days This School Is Closed for Sun Day

I grew up on the Washington coast with what seemed like near constant marine layer of clouds and too much rain. We never got any 'sun' days with school cancelled. Sure would have been nice to have when the sun did show. Now I live further inland and when people around here complain about the rain I tell them it's nothing compared to the coast.

In the State of Washington, you are eligible to write your own "Tardy" and "Absent School" notes when you turn 18. I was never given an unexcused absence, and was taking plenty of Sun days, from when I turned 18 until I graduated in June.

Our school was so poor, that when they finally succeeded in getting funding from a levy for a new library building, they had no money to buy books for it. NO BOOKS. They then blew tons of money in a lawsuit that went to the Supreme Court concerning a speech made by a student loaded with sly wit: The speech contained these sentences: "I know a man who is firm – he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm – but most...of all, his belief in you, the students of (this school), is firm. Jess is a man who will go to the very end – even the climax, for each and every one of you."

I bet the school district could have bought a few books with the money the spent on lawyers. I remember they used to have special performances and programs scheduled on the days the attendance figures affected how much funding they could get from the Feds, so all the self exiled would show up and be counted as "in attendance", rather than out.

Administration run amok, the lesson I learned from four years in that hell hole.