March 23, 2020:
Because here's the thing about my years of truancy. I was actually learning. More and better lessons than anything the City Schools could offer.
In grammar school instead of attending I stayed home reading all the books in the house. Shakespeare, Austin, Dickens, Doyle, Scott, Tolkien, Jung, Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury. All of it. More than once. Listened to classical music and The Beatles. Read the encyclopedia. Learned to cook, well.
In middle school instead of attending I read history, took LSD, had a lot of near-sex with my neighborhood gf, rode my bike all over town exploring.
In high school instead of attending I discovered the university student movement, developed my first organizing chops, learned to cook for large numbers of people, took more drugs, had actual sex with amazing college girls, studied Anarchism, internalized "The Tyranny of Structurelessness", took road trips with college students to Berkeley to buy books.
What did I learn in K-12 which ever served me later in life that that I didn't already know or learn better from alternate sources?
Typing.
That, and that no matter where I was, I was in the wrong place. That lifelong sense of estrangement which began with the gifted program in fourth grade. In the 'hood I was the special kid who took the bus to the special school. At school I was the rough kid from the projects. For that it didn't matter whether I actually turned up at school or not. I mostly didn't, which meant, of course, I was again in the wrong place. I have the San Diego City Schools and a passive, incompetent parent to thank for that.