Kindergarten Memories

I can not remember things. Things like where I put my keys, what we ate for dinner two nights ago, and the last name of any of my neighbors (thank Heavens for my neighborhood directory).

I can, however, remember kindergarten. September is back to school month and this time of year, with the stores full of pencils, notebooks and lunchboxes, my thoughts return to upstate New York and 1948. I remember the hardwood floors, the way the crayons smelled, the cloakroom where we kept our snowsuits in winter and rubber overshoes in the spring. I remember the piano; the teacher would pound away on it while we formed a circle and participated in lively versions of “Pop Goes the Weasel” and “Here We Go Loop de Lou”. The latter was my favorite and I put my right hand in and took my right hand out and shook it all about with all the vigor I could muster. One time, while passionately shaking my head all about, I lost my footing and fell, knocking my head against the leg of the piano. I felt dizzy and had an upset stomach and the teacher sent me to the nurse but not before telling me that it served me right for acting so silly. What act? Of course I was silly, I was five years old and had a whole classroom of kids my own age to play with; I was more than silly I was absolutely giddy.

School was a place of wonder, a place with books that I had never seen, with colored paper, scissors and yummy paste; all sort wondrous things. Once, when I kept chattering away during “quiet time” I was sent to the supply closet to sit alone for a “time out”. It is one of my best memories of kindergarten. The supply closet had floor to ceiling shelves, with boxes and boxes of wonderful treasures. This was where they stored the reams of colored paper, so many beautiful colors, and whole boxes of pencils and crayons, scissors. At first I contented myself with peeking in the closest boxes but soon the ones on the higher shelves called to me. Before long I was climbing up the shelves like King Kong scaling the Empire State building opening boxes and delightfully examining their contents. Unfortunately, the teacher heard me thumping around in there and discovered me in mid exploration. The next time I was punished for talking out of turn I was put in the corner of the classroom where she could keep an eye on me. One of my less joyful memories is of recess time in the winter. On several occasions I spent the entire recess period just trying to get into my leggings, boots, scarf, coat, ear muffs, hat and mittens only to have the bell ring before I even breathed one breath of fresh air.

These memories are so clear, so vibrate. Now if I could just remember what I did with that grocery list, I just had it a minute ago