QUIT PLAYIN: The Last Day of School!

By Vincent L. Hall

Trump says “it depends” if there will be violence if he loses the 2024 election to Biden. But he told Time, he’ll “have a big victory” and “there will be no violence.”

– ABC News

You already know if you grew up in any of the “Black schools” in the Dallas Independent School District. If you went to Junior High schools like Boude Storey, O.W. Holmes, Zumwalt, or “Pearl C,” back in the day, you would already know.

But just in case you’re a newbie, a preppie, or the bourgeois private school type, let me break it down for you!

“The Last Day of School” was a warning to teens in my day. Rather than retaliate and face the penalties of fighting or cutting up in school, these dudes and dudettes would give you one line. “Just wait til’ the last day of school; I got something for you!”

Not only did this caveat send shock waves through the hallways and the school cafeteria, but they were the day’s gossip and the” poured tea!” Everyone on campus, including the faculty, knew who was being targeted on the dreadful day of reckoning.

Kind of like “Grease” with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, being cast with Black actors. LOL

The threats were not al- ways personal. My friends reminded me how Zumwalt was sending a whole crew in the 1970s, replete with switchblades and brass knuckles, to beat the hell out of anyone on the Boude Storey school-yard. I sharpened my hook knife and hid my “five smooth stones” near the school just in case.

My grandfather, Ed Hall, left two provisos that clung to my cerebellum. First, “It’s nice to be nice, but when you can’t, kick ‘em in the ass!”

He warned against being the aggressor. Start with a palm branch in your right hand, but if diplomacy fails, use the baseball bat in your left.

The second advisory was, “If it gets too hot, don’t be ashamed to run…live to fight another day!” Now, my grandfather will never be as widely known as Dale Carnegie, who wrote a standard and classic titled “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” but PaPa’s words have saved me time and time again. (Parenthetically, get Carnegie’s book; it was and is an insightful take on relationships.)

America needs to understand PaPa’s cautions, as the former president keeps warning us of “the last day of school” if he doesn’t get elected.

There are two reasons that Donald J. (the J is for Jailbird) Trump and his predictions on the the aftermath of his all-but-certain loss in No vember don’t bother me.

After living through weeks of fear in my youth, hyperventilating about the last day of school, I no longer fret about things that are out of my control.

Think about it. If Trump and the MAGA missionaries were serious, they wouldn’t wait til the last day of school to create mass chaos and insurrection.

If Trump and his imps believed that the 2020 election was truly rigged, the screenplay of January 6th would have played out all over the nation, and not just the capital.

As we say in the Black church, “Don’t wait til the battle is over, fight now! (Or something to that effect.)

Papa was right. When Donald gets smothered in November, we need to be respectful. Losing an election is highly emotional, especially when you are passionate about your candidate.

Hell, I am still angry with Al Gore for surrendering the 2004 race against George W. Bush. But Gore did the right thing.

Will Donald Trump lose the upcoming election? Hell yeah.

Biden has to make amends with voters about Palestine, but he has already begun to deal with Israel even handedly. Biden enjoys the benefit of being in a beauty pageant with the ugliest contestant you can find! Trump is in all human respects an ogre!

Will Donald Trump secure himself in the taxpayer-funded bunker with the Secret Service while he dispatches the violent branch of his MAGA brigade on the country?

Probably.

But PaPa had one more nugget.

He said “Son, you can’t keep nobody from attacking you, but nobody comes like Cabbage…all head and no ass! You gotta bring some ass to get some and there’s no such thing as a fair fight.”

We made it through the last day of school! We’ll make it after Trump loses again!
The End!

A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.