High School Hi-Jinx

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, students at South Philadelphia High School who cut more classes than they were allowed to  - and they are allowed to cut 20 classes per year - are not being allowed to attend their senior prom unless they make up CARE packages for soldiers overseas.

These acts of grace have a good outcome, at least.  The students run out and procure $25 worth of beef jerky, nuts, sunflower seeds, granola bars, Crystal Light singles and lip balm, and the USO is paying to ship the boxes to soldiers in Afghanistan, one of whom is a 2012 Southern graduate.

South Philadelphia High, known as Southern High up in the City of Brother Lee Love (the name of a DJ who used to work there at WFIL) is the alma mater of many a luminary of our society, such as Al Martino (born Jasper Cini), Frankie Avalon (Francis Thomas Avallone), Fabian (Fabiano
Anthony Forte), Mario Lanza (Alfred Arnold Cocozza), Jack Klugman (Jacob Joachim Klugman), Joey Bishop (Joseph Abraham Gottlieb), Chubby Checker (Ernest Evans) and James Darren (James William Ercolani).

From this, we have learned two things: the principal of South Philly High, one Otis Hackney III, has a very strict policy as regards skipping classes, and students are only allowed to cut 20 times before feeling the ruthless hand of Hackney's Law on the back of their rented tuxedos.

Eddie Fisher (center) poses with his
first (r) and second (l) wives.

That's 20 cuts, friends.  20.

But this seems appropriate for a school from which no one seems to be graduated under their own name.  Say hi to Edwin John "Sonny Boy" Tisch from the class of 1946.  You knew him as Eddie Fisher.