Life is a Beach

A couple of weeks ago, our health occupations teacher, a portly, somewhat gruff woman in her forties who is a registered nurse, plopped down in the teacher's lounge at lunch and declared her frustration with hearing her junior and senior girls talk about nothing but where they were staying with their boyfriends when they went to the beach over spring break, or how skimpy their bikinis were going to be, or how many times they needed to get to the tanning booth before then. "You know what I want to say to them?" she asked. "I want to say, 'I hope you screw so much that it tears your asses up! Then maybe you'll come to your senses!'"

Well. I can honestly say that livened up our lunch, but aside from that her point was noted as one of the main reasons why the time approaching spring break is such a difficult one to work in. You see, because our part of the state is only a couple of hours from the beach (at the most), it is easy for the kids to get down to the coast for part, or all of their break. What appalled me when I first started teaching, and still does, is that so many parents let their kids go down there without any supervision. Sometimes the kids stay for a few days, but some stay all week, and they borrow or rent out beach houses, apartments, or hotel rooms. I wasn't allowed to go on an out-of-town trip with friends anywhere until I graduated. But not only do many seniors from my school go, many juniors, sophomores, and freshmen- for God's sake -are right with them.

Just listen in on a conversation or two in the weeks leading to break, and you will hear kids speaking of who they will procure alcohol from, which girls (if boys are talking) they will try to "get with", or where their set-up will be in relation to their friends'.

Where do they get the money for these bacchanal's? What the hell are their parents doing? Why the hell do those in authority at these beach communities allow this to happen (guess I know the answer to that: cha-ching!)

Three years ago, the talk of the school after break was over was the homemade porn one of the senior girls and junior boys made together. I'm not sure she knew a camera was rolling, but lots of kids saw it, and from what I gathered she wore her notoriety as a badge of honor the rest of the semester. Nice, huh?

What I really love is when, periodically, a kid will ask me, "Hey Mr. P? Do you want to go down to the beach with us?"

You know kid, if it were legal for me to force your parents, perhaps at gunpoint, to follow me down there, I might take you up on it.