Thank you all for your responses. Reading through them, it's amazing to me how the diversity of responses pretty much replicates the war that is going on in my own mind.
One thing that came to mind since I posed the question, is the fact that missing a day of school may impact his grades that are on the margin, however, it would probably have little or no impact on his ACT or SAT scores for college admission. So I suppose the bigger issue is, would I be impacting his work ethic down the road. Sure one day is no big deal, but one day can lead to two, and for all I know, he may then take a week off from college to go elk hunting out west without us even knowing it. Conversely, he may relish that one day and take no more than that down the road. Who knows the future?
One thing I will say, my son is a hard worker. Like many boys, he needs a little nudge on the homework front once in a while, but once he's kick-started, he stays with it. Also, he has caddied four days a week at the nearby country club since the age of 13 and willingly gets up at 5:30am so that he can be one of the first ones on the list. But still ... there's this lingering fear in my mind that I'm starting a new precedent that may negatively impact him for years to come. Sure it's only one day, but like the old pulpit preachers say, one drink most surely leads to two.