By Carl Sampson
I know this is the time of year when kids are twitterpated about the end of the school year.
They think it’s great that they won’t have to get out of bed in the middle of the night to be at school on time, get to all of their sports and drama practices on time and get to you have kids in both middle school and high school, you have double trouble: two calendars to reconcile.
Only after the last track meet or the last graduation do we get our lives back.
I know, it’s not so bad. Actually, it’s kind of enjoyable, watching the kidlings grow up to become model citizens – ahem – and taking their rightful place in society – double ahem.
But after what seems like an eternity, it does get old. My wife and I have been at it 16 years, and we have another six years to go before everyone’s out of high school. That’s 22 years of chasing around.
I wish I had a nickel for every soccer game, fund-raiser or other activity I’ve chased to.
In fact, if you gave me a penny for every time I got flack from the kids after saying the magic words “It’s time to get up” I would be right up there with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett on the list of billionaires.
I remember when I was a kid, I took part in exactly one activity: school. No sports, none of that other stuff kids are wrapped up in these days, and you can see how well I turned out.
Oh, never mind.
I suppose it’s good to give the kids at least some of the opportunities I never had.
But, in my mind at least, the best part of those activities will always be the summer, when the calendar is cleared and we can do things as a family instead of as taxi drivers and kid herders.
For the summer at least, we can actually do exactly what we want to do: recuperate.
