America's favorite pastime has always been baseball, well for this American, it's people watching. People watching is a fabulous hobby for many reasons, it's cheap, it's non-addictive and it provides countless hours of entertainment. Most of my favorite people watching stories come to me from the dark and ominous hallways of Skyline High School. I could sit for hours at the end of the hallway and watch pubescent teens get to 1st base, while at the other end of the hallway, girls swing their Hello Kitty back-packs and attempt to rip out each others weave out with their five inch nails. As I stand there for a brief second, I absorb all of the chaos and I am reminded of the scenes from "Mean Girls" where Janice Ian describes the demographics of the school lunch room. Sadly my hobby is cut short by the one-minute warning bell, back to reality......
Being a teacher is a great profession, because unlike most other professions, we have ample opportunities to escape from reality for weeks at a time. My escape from reality came two weeks ago when Megan, Caroline and myself packed up the Honda for a cross-Texas road trip to South Padre Island. I have to admit I was a tad skeptical of this trip at first. Five years ago if you had told me I was going to Padre for Spring Break I would thrown my beer bong, a thirty pack of Keystone, two bathing suits and a pair of flip flops into a duffel bag then hit the road. Being the now, responsible and mature adult that I am(wink wink)I was worried that Padre was going to be a tad crazy for us "seasoned veterans." As we approach hour eight in the car I realize, this is it! People-Watching Heaven!
We first approach Coca-Cola Beach slightly after 1 pm on Wednesday afternoon. We were welcomed by the aroma of stale beer, salt water and 18,000 drunk people singing "Shots, Shots, SSShots." Since we were rollin' V.I.P that week (staying with an island native) we were centrally located on a deck perched over the entire crowd. As I stood proudly on the rickety wooden ledge, I watched as my minions drank themselves into a state of retardation. It was when I first heard the chant "Raider..Power" that I knew the Texas Tech tent would be the source of all my great stories. The men proudly circled around their self made beer pong table and beat their chest while screaming "TAKE THAT SON!" Since throwing a ping-pong ball into a red solo cup is the only skill some Tech students have going for them (I love my Tech friends, I just like to give them a hard time), the girls watched on with with expressions of sheer amazement on their faces. Breaks were taken only when a LMFAO song would hit the loud speakers, which was a cue for the guys to sway back and forth with their hands in the air behind the girl that happened to be closest to them when the song came on. After several hours of beer, sun and laughs it was time to say good-bye to Coca-Cola Beach and back to reality....
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