The words High School and truant will forever be linked in my memory. I remember years ago, there were emails and ads for some company that wanted to put you in contact with your old schoolmates. Well, being that I never graduated, they couldn’t find my picture in an album or on a list of graduates. If they searched old school files they might have found the truancy records. Those would put in contact with the bunch I hung around with at the pool hall. “Yes, sir! Lou! How are you doin’, my man? Hey! Let’s go to Sullivan’s and have a few Guinness for old-time sake!”
Remember how the old movies had truant officers scouring the streets and pool halls for the neer do wells? In New York City, I never saw that. We were just “free-range students” until the expulsion letter was mailed. No truant officer ever placed a tail on me. We reveled in how powerless the schools were to do anything about us. Of course, the truth was that the schools could not have cared less. Most serious truants were custodial problems; they had no idea what to do with us. So we were warehoused until we conveniently disappeared to the alternative educational system: the streets.
In my case, I took hold of a loose alternative and drifted to Greenwich Village, where I performed in the lower end of Folkie coffeehouses and matriculated into the village’s alternative educational system.
Years later, I convinced a major university to grant me a bachelor’s degree based on my merit rather than my educational background in high school. Education is where you find it.
A few years ago, I was driving through New York City and passed my old high school on the highway. I felt not the least urge to stop and revisit good times – there weren’t any.
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Truancy was my forte too, until they sent me to a school with a more militant attendance officer.
Spoil sports!
Exactly!