Playing Hooky

I recently found this really great blog called Mama's Losin It.  She posts a writing assignment every week.  You can check out what others are writing about here.  Since I couldn't think of anything to write about today I thought I would pick one of her "assignments".  The one I chose was:  If you could go back to one day in your childhood, what would it be?

I had to think about this for a little while.  I knew it would be something about my dad as he passed away when I was 11.  He was sick for a long time and I really wanted to write about a time when we did something together and it didn't seem to me that he was as sick as he really was.  Then I remembered one time when I was in school and we "played hooky".

I think I was in 3rd grade.  I don't remember the exact year but I know that I had been in school for a little while when the secretary came down to deliver a message.  It was always exciting when she came because everyone wanted to know who got to be so important that the secretary had to come all the way down the hall to our class just for them.  Were they in trouble?  Did they forget their lunch?  Did they have to go home?  I had never gotten a special message and was really hoping it was for me.  Even if I was in trouble, I thought it would be cool to get one.  

So, to my total surprise it was for me.  I was hoping and hoping that it wasn't something dumb like I'd forgot my lunch. She said that I needed to get my stuff together and that my dad was waiting to pick me up.  Of course, at first I was worried that something was wrong, but the secretary told me nothing was wrong we just had to go somewhere. To this day I don't know if she knew what my dad was up to or if he told her a fib.  I got to my dad's big Suburban and he had this total "shit-eating" grin on his face.  He was a big jokester and always up to something.

I got in the car and he said that we were playing hooky and not to tell mom.  Ha!  Talk about a dream come true for a kid.  That day we went to A&W and had hotdogs that they brought to your car.  We each had giant rootbeer floats and sides of fried mushrooms.  My favorite.  The rest of the day we spent at the park fishing and looking at cool rocks.  It wasn't that we did anything extravagant like an amusement park, but it was so fun spending the day together when nobody else knew about it.

We were back by the time I was supposed to be home from school and my mom had no idea.  I remember making up some story about what we did at school that day and my dad was grinning from ear to ear across the room.  Like he knew it meant as much to me as it did to him.  It's funny how such a little thing can mean so much when your little.  Thanks Daddy, miss you!

Have a great day,