The Beginning Of An Era

Sometimes, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. Ain't talkin' about a parking lot.

This morning I rolled out of bed around 6:30, thinking how I should be leaving in about 10 minutes for my first day back at work after summer vacation. BUT NOT! Because I'm retired, by cracky! So I just went to the bathroom and crawled back in bed, snuggled up under my grandma's hand-made quilt, listened to the driving rain, and smiled smugly to myself.

I woke up again around 8:30, and imagined Sweet Alabama Beige and Ms Cardiac sitting at a table that no one had saved for them, waiting to get in line for their free back-to-school breakfast. I hope they didn't sit in the THIS ROW GOES LAST THIS YEAR section. Because that would mean they feasted on a few tired grapes that fell off the stem, and some crusts of the ghosts of cinnamon rolls, and maybe some gravy they could scrape off the bottom of that foil tub, and some watery scrambled EggBeater fragments, and perhaps the rind of a honeydew. Good eatin'! And good sleepin' for ME, so I took another 8 or 10 winks of snooze time.

Yes, even as I drove myself to town for my 44 oz Diet Coke to mail the weekly letter (with $6 for Chinese food, and two $5 tickets of HOPE) to the #1 son, my mind was wrapping itself around my FOREVER VACATION status. I probably would have been delayed this morning anyway. The creeks were WAY up.

Yes. That creek is so far up that it has taken over the road. Probably about 15 feet above the bridge where T-Hoe's tires were wont to tread. But don't worry about Mrs. Hillbilly Mom! I didn't have to go that way! Farmer H was kind enough to drive down there and take a picture for me. He's off, you know! To wait for Wednesday to accompany The Pony to college move-in day.

Nope. I did not have to cross that bridge. Never even came to it. But the tiny little concrete low water bridge down the hill from the Mansion about a quarter mile had been out of its banks and bent down the foliage all around it and along the other gravel road that takes me to EmBee. It comes up fast, but also recedes fairly quickly. So while all was fine at 10:20 a.m., I doubt that it was passable at 6:40.

I was feeling a little left out when the cheerful clerk who sold my soda said, "Only 174 more days until school's out!" Because I'm no longer part of the team. The team which once again earned a mention as one of Newsweek's Top 500 bastions of public education. Perhaps it's ironic that I just mangled both of those words (public and education) in typing. Yes, I missed being a part of the behind-the-scenes crew that preps the youth of today to be the leaders of tomorrow.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, right. Like I miss working!

Perhaps my sentiments are best conveyed by my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel's text this morning:

School's out FOREVER!!!!!!!!