The long and short of it...

School starts in about a week and half here in Austin. It always seems to start so early here, especially since the weather doesn’t really start cooling down until October. The school schedules are different here in the South than they were up North. In New Jersey, we would attend school until sometime in June, and then start up again after Labor Day. But here, school goes until May, and then reconvenes in mid-August. Honestly, I think I liked the northern schedule better. Sure, you have to wait a few extra weeks for vacation to begin, but I’ve always been one of those people who doesn’t mind waiting for a little while, if I know something good is on the way. If you’re impatient, and decide you have to have your summer vacation in May, then you’ll be expected to return to school in August. But if you can endure your classes for just a little while longer, you can laugh at all those poor Texas kids heading back to school in August. While they’re getting used to new schedules and taking pop quizzes, YOU can lounge by the pool for a few more weeks. (But wait – does this mean that all the Texas kids are laughing at the Jersey kids when school is out in May? Oh well… no matter… Jersey kids always get the LAST laugh…)

The “school through June” schedule did pose a few problems at my New Jersey high school, though. The school was not equipped with air conditioning, and, inexplicably, was strangely devoid of windows. There were windows in the cafeteria, and windows in the library (the library where we were never allowed to go…), and windows in the science classrooms. (I have to assume those are required by law – you wouldn’t want to spill some vaporous, toxic chemical in a room with absolutely zero ventilation.) But most of the classrooms were confined to the center of the building, with four painted-concrete walls and not a single sliver of natural light. I suppose the windowless environment served to cut down on the amount of time we were able to gaze longingly at the freedom of the outside world. And, therefore, daydreaming was kept to a minimum. In our sensory-deprivation classroom cocoons, all we could focus on were the teacher, and the chalkboard, and our books.

It also got to be stiflingly hot by the time May rolled around. Even if the outside temperatures were relatively pleasant, the lack of air circulation in the middle of the building created a sort of palpable stuffiness. You could almost feel the weight of the warm air pressing down on your shoulders as you climbed the stairs from the first floor to the even-hotter second floor. And it was bad enough that no one had bothered to design a better floor plan layout – perhaps one that allowed for windows in EVERY room – and no one had considered adding air conditioning (or a few fans?) to the school. But what made school in late spring even more unbearable was our dress code – we weren’t allowed to wear shorts.

And for a couple years, it was simply something we all dealt with. Okay, so it’s 90 degrees in the history classroom and there’s no air and there’s no fan and we have to wear jeans and I can’t get enough oxygen to my brain to remember how, exactly, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand fits in with the beginning of World War I… but hey, that’s just the way things are. Until my junior year. I arrived at school on one of those humid, stuffy mornings to see many of my fellow classmates standing around outside. Which wasn’t unusual, except there seemed to be many more people hanging around outside than there normally were. Once inside, I ran into some people I knew who filled me in on what was happening – it was a walk out. A lot of the students had decided they were fed up with the “no shorts” policy, especially since our school had NO windows and NO air conditioning. And they were walking out of classes that day, until someone decided the policy should be changed. I, of course, could never ditch a class for the sake of shorts, and ended up going to my classes as usual – along with all five other people who were of the “I can’t skip school! It’s wrong!” mentality. But as I went from empty class to empty class, breathing in the stifling air and sweating in my jeans, I realized just how much I admired those kids who were outside, standing up for a change to a policy that was, obviously, ridiculous.

And it only took a few hours – right around lunchtime, kids started streaming back into the school, with excited and proud smiles on their faces, and those of us who’d been too “good” to skip class heard about how the principal and vice principal were reviewing a change to the dress code. From now on, we’d be able to wear shorts – as long as they were no shorter than the tips of the fingers when arms were held down at our sides. It was reasonable enough for me. We only had a couple weeks of school left to wear our shorts, but senior year, kids started wearing them around April – as soon as the slightest rise in temperature was detected…

I’ve always had a little bit of regret over the fact that I didn’t participate in the Shorts Walk Out. At the time, I felt like I had to be “good,” and that meant going to my classes when I was supposed to go to them. Which I suppose is commendable, but so was what all those other kids did. They got tired of a silly policy, and when things just got too uncomfortable to deal with anymore, they made sure the policymakers were aware of their discontent. And they were able to effect change – which was the whole point to begin with. It may have been a small, minor change – but when you’re melting in a stifling classroom while attempting to ace your final exams, it helps if you can at LEAST wear shorts.

Now if only I’d gotten all the nerds together and staged a walk out for more library time…