Boyleing Points (Rockaway Times)

Boyleing Points — Just When You’re Getting Used To It

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Kevin Boyle in Boyleing Points

I kinda feel like Arthur from the movie by the same name.  He’s a drunken millionaire who… okay, pause.  I feel like Arthur without the millions.  I have nothing in common with him except for those times when I get too celebratory.  Anyway, in one scene, he gets nostalgic with his butler, the older man who essentially raised him.

Remember we used to play hide and seek?  I would hide and you never found me, Arthur says.  The butler replies, dryly, I never looked.

So, I hid this column from The Rockaway Times for weeks and you never looked. I get it, I get it. You’re a bunch of smart aleck butlers is what you all are.

You might not have noticed but it’s been a while. I feel like I should be writing a How I Spent My Summer Vacation essay, which teachers used to force us to do when we returned to school in September. Teachers didn’t care what we did on our vacations.  They just had to occupy us while they tried to come to grips that the summer was over.

A lot of people who retire get bored after a few months and soon start to look for some kind of work. Teachers have fake retirements.  Every summer they feel like they’re retired but never quite get bored enough that they start itching to do something, like real retirees.

And just when they’re settling in, around August 15th, they realize they’re not retired.  They’ve got to go back.  It’s easy to spot a teacher in later summer.  They’re like the Walking Dead.  They can’t hide the dread.

By the third week of August they’re looking for calendars to find out when the Jewish holidays are.  They perk up a little when they realize there are a couple

of Muslim holidays this year, too.  They’ll need those days off in September.  No way can they do full weeks right away.  Some go further and check Columbus Day and then count how many weeks until Thanksgiving.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Of course teachers generally love their jobs (and their precious students) but the pain on their faces as August turns into September is as predictable as any tide.  Summer goes too fast for everybody but teachers and school secretaries are like death row inmates hoping for a call from the governor to commute the sentence (or extend the summer).

And they get no sympathy.  But I’m giving it.  I was just getting used to this column vacation thing and now I gotta get started again.  It’s rough.  And like teachers, I can’t go every week just yet.  I’ve penciled in a couple of Scientology and Rastafarian holidays on my calendar.   With marijuana sure to be legal in the near future, Rasta holidays are coming.  All of September could go up in smoke. I’m just getting ahead of the curve and declaring these holidays now. Not sure when exactly they’ll occur but I’ll skip the column and will demand Alternate Side of the Street rules – and reality — be suspended.

So how did I spend my summer vacation?  Oh, that’s for another column.  I was just trying to keep you occupied until I came to grips with being back.  And for you wiseacres who wish I’d stay on vacation.  At least we’ve got something in common.