Senior Skip Day

(First published on GazetteXtra, 5/25/10)

I know when Milton's Senior Skip Day is.

I would like to say that I found this out through my brilliant investigative skills and fatherly intuition.

But actually, I simply asked my daughter. And she also told me that all that was needed for her to participate was a signed absence note.

Say what? Senior Skip Day is no big secret anymore? And it's parent-approved?

Where is the fun in that? A parent-approved Senior Skip Day is like getting permission from a cop to break the speed limit. It takes away the thrill of getting away with something, where you planned and executed this covert action and your enjoyment could not be complete because of the worry about being caught.

They took Senior Skip Day seriously when I was in school. The planning was all very hush-hush. When the administration caught wind of the day it was supposed to happen, stern warnings went out over the high school PA system. There were even threats about holding back diplomas.

Now, the word is out, and no one seems to care. Yawn.

It must be a generational thing. Once, rock and roll was the music of youthful rebellion; now we go to rock concerts with our kids. Once, we pulled a fast one on teachers and parents; now the parents are in on the deal.

I didn't participate in the big Senior Skip Day at Milton High School in 1980 – in fact, I'm not even sure now that there was one - but my friends and I made one of our own that spring.

It was totally spontaneous. A group of us were talking in the cafeteria before school, and the main topic of conversation was how much we didn't want to be there. That's not much different than what I'm hearing from my daughter right now. Her AP tests are over and she really wants school to be done.

As my friends and I were comparing notes about our class schedules that particular day, we came to the conclusion that there was nothing transpiring that we couldn't miss. So in an incredibly bold and amazingly stupid move, we walked back out to the parking lot, jumped in a car and listened to the bell ring as we left the school grounds.

We ended up spending the day in Madison, a bunch of 18-year-olds enjoying the wonders of State Street. Our big plan was to time our return so that we got back to the high school right when the school day was ending.

And you know what? It worked. We actually got away with it. My group made it to the parking lot right as the final bell rang, and we each went home “from school” at our normal time.

In those days, an absence did not need to be reported with a phone call from home, and as 18-year-olds, we could sign our own excuse notes. We all did that the following day, and our parents were none the wiser about The Day We Skipped School.

Not that anybody ever read the excuse notes anyway. On another occasion when I missed school due to Actual Illness, I decided to pocket my authentic absence note signed by Mom and instead turn in a note I wrote myself, explaining that I had been in Vatican City to visit Pope Paul. The secretary never looked at the note; she just stamped it and threw it in a box with the rest while issuing my “Excused Absence” pass.

Speaking of my mother, she has never heard about any of this, and she doesn't own a computer, so please don't tell her. She could still kick my butt, even with a fake hip and knee.

And that sense of danger and the threat of a good butt-kicking was all part of the excitement. An openly-revealed, mom-and-dad-sanctioned Senior Skip Day?

How boring.