The Field Trip

Today is one of many "post-TAKS" days in our school district. You know, once the yearly standardized tests have been completed the teachers kind of "mail-in" the rest of the year with all sorts of parties and movie-watching classes. This particular day is one of the High Holy days of being a kid: The field trip. (The other two high holy days are the "day of the unexpected substitute" and the "surprise video day")

I loved the field trip when I was a kid. Didn't matter where, either. In elementary school, I remember going to see The Children's Theatre in the spring. We also went to see some Indian burial mounds. In middle school we went to see an antebellum home, which, as best as I can discern, was a monument to children born below the Mason-Dixon line never forget how badly the North treated the South in The War of Northern Aggression. In high school we even had one, although in retrospect I can't imagine why: Somehow our entire school got to go see our varsity basketball team in the state playoffs (we even got to drive ourselves...lawsuits waiting to happen, but nobody cared back then).

My oldest daughter is off today to the Dallas World Aquarium. I hope she remembers to stay with her buddy and keep her arms inside the bus windows at all times. If memory serves, those were my weaknesses on the day off from school.