My story post 34

I was in the ninth grade, before there was middle school, it was Junior High then. Junior high was grades 7,8 and 9. High school was grades 10, 11 and 12. Patrick lived across the street and was a couple years older than I. He went to a private high school and sometimes drove his mom’s station wagon… He had a license to Drive!

One day he asked if I’d like to go to the beach with him and a friend… like the next day. ‘Well yeah, but it’s a school day’ I told him. Well, his friend had a cousin that lived in Torrance Beach and he kept a few surfboards in the garage there so we could get away without boards and use the ones his friend had access to.

“So” Patrick said, “ here’s the plan. I’ll have my mom’s car. We’ll make like we’re going to school but instead drive down to Torrance get the boards and hit the surf at Torrance beach. Surf for a while, take the boards back and head home before school’s out so our parents will be none the wiser… you wanna go or what?”

I was a little apprehensive but what dim wit would say no to a chance to go surfing? OK… it was a school day, but…. I said ‘yes, I’m in’.

The next morning everything went off with out a hitch. We made our way to Torrance and the house where the surf boards were stashed. Got the boards from the garage, stuffed them in the station wagon and headed to the beach. Lucky thing Patrick’s friend knew where we were going because I sure didn’t.

It was such a nice day. Warm, sunny, light variable winds and the surf was about shoulder to head high. I’d never been to Torrance Beach, don’t remember ever going back but I still remember this particular day… the surf was fun!

Finally after surfing and hanging at the beach for a couple hours we were hungry and decided to find a small market to get a soda to go with our lunch. I packed a sack lunch just like I did every school day and had it for the trip. We ate and flipped the soda bottle caps around the parking lot of the market a bit before climbing in the car and heading back to the house to put the surfboards back.

When we got home all seemed fine. We all made like we were coming home from school just like any other day. I was a little nervous but didn’t think I let on. At home everything seemed normal… until I found my parents setting in the screened in pouch at the back of the house. Actually, my brother told me they wanted to see me. So I walked in and the first thing they asked… “So Dennis, how was school today?”

Geez… right then and there I knew something wasn’t right. They never ask me that, they had to be baiting me. Some how, someone, I didn’t know but, they knew I had ditched. Lucky for me intuition kicked in and beside the fact that I’m a terrible lier answered their question with ‘um… I didn’t go’ “You didn’t go” my mom asked. ‘No I went surfing with Patrick’

My parents were pleased I had told them the truth but didn’t let me off the hook. They wrote a note for me to take to school the next day that basically said I had an unexcused absence. I got something like 7 days after school detention. I remember sitting at a desk in detention doing my home work with maybe a dozen other kids I didn’t know and visions of a nice day at the beach surfing running through my head.

I only ditched school one other time. It was high school senior ditch day. I told my mom I wasn’t going to school that day because it was senior ditch day. I didn’t go to the beach though. I stayed home and worked on surfboards.

D.R.

My son Robin at the same age I was when I ditched school. He didn’t have to ditch, he could surf any day he wanted after school… and he did almost everyday there was a wave to ride…. Lucky kid.