Driving up 35th today I passed several groups of school kids, dressed in their uniforms. It looked like school was just getting out, except that it was dark outside. I checked my watch and it was 6pm. If it was only one group of young people, I would have thought that one of the schools was having a special event, but there were several different groups of students at different points along the way,  dressed in several different uniforms. I guess some Oakland kids have much longer school days that I ever had. The two boys in this drawing looked to be about 13 or 14. They were standing and waiting for their ride home and their expressions seemed to suggest that they were tired. When I saw them, I thought about how different life must be for young people whose school days are structured around the hours of a traditional adult workday and how different that must be from the way things were when I was in school…not better and not worse, just different.

8-Rock