I played hooky yesterday. Now, I know how Ferris Bueller really felt.
It was not planned, but spontaneous. And, when I made the decision to skip my responsibilities for the day, I fully recognized that it could end badly with me in the principal’s office the next day.
It was worth it.
Two of my good friends, Richard Bowers and Richard Brown, often take road trips together. They claim they are looking for real estate to buy. But, everyone knows better. We all know their trips are just so they can have fun, get away from the rest of us for a while, and enjoy each other as they see the countryside in places away from Jacksonville. Mostly they like to go to north Georgia or up into North Carolina.
Often, they have invited me to go with them, and always I have had to decline.
But, yesterday was different. This time their escape was only for a day, not the normal overnight adventure. And, God knows when they told me of their plans to scoot up to Darien, Ga.—about two hours north of Jacksonville—and return later in the day on Tuesday, I sure wanted to go.
But, with an early morning meeting on Tuesday and other work to do afterwards, I told them no.
Then, as I was sitting in my early morning meeting, I started thinking about what my two buddies would be doing all day, and my longing to join them got the best of me.
That’s when I phoned Richard Bowers and told him I wanted to go and he could pick me up when he collected Richard Brown at Brown’s house. Then, I hustled to a K-Mart and purchased a hooky uniform consisting of a pair of shorts, tee-shirt and sandals, which I exchanged for my pants, shirt and tie in a bathroom at Brown’s house.
From the moment I made the call to Bowers, I felt good. I don’t think it was because I felt I was getting away with something like when you skip school for a day. Instead, it was more because I knew what I was going to do was the right thing.
And, that’s exactly how it turned out. We did absolutely nothing that was important. Despite being together and talking for nine or ten hours, we said nothing that changed our lives or altered the world situation.
Just being together was the deal. Spending time to enjoy each other, no matter what we did or what we said, was what was important.
I can’t wait until I get another chance.
Annette and Velvet 1
Black Jack
About Me
- Mike Tolbert
- United States
- Mike Tolbert has a highly respected thirty-year career as one of Florida’s top public relations professionals. Tolbert has been consulting the leadership at Waste Management, Inc. His most recent client is OmniTRAX, the largest privately held short line railroad and ports operation in the North America. The Florida Times-Union once called Tolbert “the man who invented Jacksonville.” Mike created the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, he helped ignite the successful effort to bring the NFL to Jacksonville by creating and producing “Colt Fever,” an event that attracted 55,000 people to the old Gator Bowl. Other Tolbert events include Mayor Hans Tanzler water skiing on the St. Johns River with the Cypress Gardens Ski team in 1977 to symbolize the river’s restoration, and the blowing up of a tollbooth in 1988 to signal the start of a successful campaign to rid the city’s bridges and roads of tolls. In 2003, Mike coaxed a pair of live jaguars at the Jacksonville Zoo to accept a $3 million check. He has managed or been senior political consultant for numerous successful Jacksonville political campaigns, including the election of Mayor John Peyton in 2003.
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