The Walk Out

It started with a mysterious flyer handed out around school when we were in 10th grade. I don’t remember the specifics, but it had something to do with budget cuts and voicing our opposition by walking out of class mid-day and holding a mass protest out in front of the Board of Education (which was located right next door to our high school) - I think it even might have been signed “Mister X”. To be honest, I didn’t really understand (or care) about the protest. I think it was supposed to be this secret underground student movement that would shock and surprise the teachers and administration into talking action. However, I do remember being bored in class one day and asking my history teacher what the deal was with the “walk out”? I might have created a faux pas because the other kids in the class looked at me with daggers in their eyes, like how dare I share our secret strategy with “the enemy”. In the interest of full disclosure there’s a good chance that I was high during this incident, I’m not making excuses, just playing the percentages.

As I mentioned, I had no interest in budget cuts, they could have cut high school out of the budget entirely and I would have been fine with that. But there was something going on there, a buzz if you will. There were rumors that at least one of the networks would have a news crew there and so I guess we used it as an opportunity rather than a cause.

The day of the walk out Al brought his video camera in to school to document the event for posterity sake. I remember using the walk out as an excuse to cut the whole day of classes even though the walk out didn’t start until later in the day. I also remember Al “interviewing” me and Alan in the back of the school before the event to get our opinion on the walk out. I haven’t seen the video tape in about 20 years (because Al’s brother’s taped over it – Superman II anyone?), but from what I remember of the interview it consisted of a lot of random complaining on our part. Of course, the interview was just the prelude to the main event of the day – the actual walk out. Students started gathering out in front of the school at the specified time – since I was already cutting I can’t give any first-hand account of teachers standing in disbelief as their students walked out en mass. We then walked over to the board of education and stood around while more and more kids joined the protest. There were even a few teachers there; I guess to make sure things didn’t deteriorate into chaos. Out of almost 2000 kids in school I’d guess that somewhere between a half and three quarters ended up joining the protest.

Out of nowhere one of the organizers of the walk out stood up on the back of a pickup truck that was parked in front of the board of ed, I didn’t recognize her, and to this day I couldn’t tell you her name. She started rambling about one thing or another, but of course, whenever you have this many kids in one place it would be tough for even Sirus (Can you dig it?) to hold their attention. About this time Alan hit play on his little boom box he used to carry around and the Cro-Mags “We Gotta Know” started drowning out the rambling girl on the pickup truck. Almost immediately all of the metalheads, dirtbags, and hardcore kids broke into a spontaneous mosh pit further distracting the crowd from the purpose of the walk out. The walk out was clearly losing steam, the final straw was a hail of rocks that crashed into the truck as the girl speaker was trying to lead the crowd in a chant of “No budget cuts!”.

The crowd soon started to disperse and head back to their remaining classes. I never saw any sign of reporters and I don’t remember any disciplinary action on the part of the administration. In the end, the only impact was a mosh pit, a school wide case of juvenile delinquency, and a long forgotten video tape.