Playing Hookey

I always had a problem with school.  I was bored and did not want to be there.  So, from the eighth grade on through my senior year I skipped school at every opportunity.  I had it down to a science.  I'd pick a day when I had not tests and miss school.  Then I'd use my best excuse and if I got an "excused" absence slip I'd just keep it and never let the teachers sign it.  I'd do this in the first nine days of the month.  That way I could skip again and just put a one or a two in front of the original day and be able to make up any tests I had missed.

Now, I had a twenty-one mile bus ride to and from school and most days when I skipped school I'd be back (near) home before the school bus driver was back at his own house. 

This particular day I was skipping with two of my cousins, Stevie and Benny Boyd.  We all got home at a reasonable time in the morning.  We bought a chicken from Wanda Boyd (another cousin) and went to Stevie's house to get a pot to cook it in.  We were walking into the front door when I heard my mother's voice so I did a fast U-Turn and headed out to a convenient hiding place.

Steve and Benny came back with a pot (cooker, whatever... we just called it a small kettle) and a loaf of bread.  We went up a small branch across from Wanda's house where now there is a family graveyard on one side and a house trailer on the other.  I cleaned and cut up the chicken and we got water from the stream and built a fire and cooked that chicken.  I tore up chunks of "light" bread for dumplings and Benny used some salt and pepper he had taken from his house or Steve's  house to season the chicken with.

When we finished there was nothing but a dirty kettle and gnawed chicken bones scattered around where we were.  Stevie took the kettle back to his house and Bennie went back to his house and I headed to my own home at about the right time to have ridden the bus home from school.

I know I was so sick from that improvised meal I could not eat any of my regular supper.  Still, in all, it was a good day and one I'll always remember.  I wonder if Stevie and Bennie remember that day?