As a kid, I lived for June. Not only was June my birthday, it was also parole month. The bars of the school swung open and 90-plus days of Huckleberry Finn idleness stretched endlessly before me.
This was, of course, back in the day when there was no such thing as “off track” or year-round school. It was probably a law then that tedium could last only nine months — with extended breaks for the holidays.
The summer between fifth and sixth grades lives in my memory as the perfect example of freedom. My parents were working.