Anne, go to a table

This is going to be a really weird blahg topic but somehow it floated into my consciousness during my 0-skunk-30 walk this morning and hasn’t left me all day. 0-skunk-30 is when I tend to dwell on life, the universe, and everything. Or maybe just some run-of-the-mill work or domestic problem. 0-skunk-30 is different than that batscope time of morning. Whaddya mean, you don’t know what “that batscope time of morning” is? It is 3:00 AM or thereabouts. It’s that time of morning when so many of us wake up and can’t get back to sleep. Why? Because that’s when we face the fact that we’re going to die. I’m not even going to begin to try to explain that. You either understand it or you don’t.

Anyway, *this* morning, I wasn’t focused on any one particular train of thought. It was hot and slodgy and I was just kind of galumphing along. And then I remembered when I went to kindergarten. I don’t remember toooooo much about my kindergarten days. I do remember when we were told we were going to have a fire grill. I was really excited about having hamburgers for a snack because that’s what we cooked on our grill at the moomincabin. Except that the teacher had actually said “drill”, not “grill”, and then that horrible buzzer went off! What a letdown. And I remember having a UTI once and being sent to school *anyway* and peeing all over the spot where I sat in our circle. Big puddle of pee surrounding me. (Actually, we called it “piddle” at my house back in those days.) I probably *had* a UTI because I was terrified of the kindergarten bathroom and didn’t use it. Yeah, I know. Me, who used an outhouse in the summer. Go figure. Anyway, I had to drink some horrible chalky medicine and that apparently got rid of the problem. I’m not sure if I *ever* got used to using the elementary school bathrooms. Good thing we didn’t stay at school for lunch in those days. (Actually, yes I did get used to those bathrooms. But that would be a whole ‘nother boring blahg entry.)

What I was thinking about this morning was how, when I first went to kindergarten, when it got to be time for free-choice-type activities, I would stand in the middle of the room like a deer in the headlights. For weeks (or so it seemed). All the other kids would race to whatever table or area of the room had their fave activity of the week. Me. Not so much. What do I want to do? Do the kids at that table want me there? I’m guessing the teacher had probably tried every 1950s teaching technique in the book to encourage me to find something to do but I don’t remember any of that. What I remember is the day she finally got frustrated and told me in no uncertain terms to just go to a table already. I don’t remember which table I chose.

I don’t know exactly where I was going with this, so I better quit while I’m ahead and make it a memory. School was always a little awkward for me. It didn’t really get totally better until I went back to college as a 50-year-old. I was shy and awkward at first but I was there because I wanted to be. I was pretty passionate about what I was doing and I would like to think that eventually, I became one of the leaders.

Gotta go, the GG is heating up the drill. Er, I mean grill.

4 Responses to “Anne, go to a table”

  1. Margaret Says:

    Yay for grilling!! I don’t remember kindergarten except that my teacher was very, very big and I was very, very small.

  2. Kathy Farnell Says:

    Mrs. Springman was my kindergarten teacher. I remember drawing a picture of my house just about every day in her class. I liked to play in the “kitchen” and make pretend dinners. I also remember taking a rest – we had to put our head down on the desk and be quiet for a while. I did not like kindergarten. I was extremely bored, and I don’t think I learned anything in that wasted year. The programs for children now are so much more exciting. Kids learn to read and learn about planets, dinosaurs, Indians, flowers etc. Now, there are programs for children that stimulate the mind. I think I did the same thing every day for the entire school year.

  3. Kathy Farnell Says:

    Hey Anne! I just took a better look at your picture. Looks like you cut your own bangs! Love that look!

  4. grandmothertrucker Says:

    heh heh heh…. Kathy, I was just going to ask that. A lot of girls do that around that age. Suzie had Mrs.Springman too. Right now I can’t remember my kindergarten teachers name, but I do remember getting my first pair of glasses and leaving them on the window ledge at recess so they wouldn’t get broken. When we got back from recess, they were gone! I didn’t get another pair until 4th grade. I remember trying to walk home all by myself on the first day and I got scared and lost and called home from my new friends house on 12 & Vinsetta Blvd., Kim McKillup’s house. We saw a very good very old movie on the wall about butterflys emerging from cocoons. We painted every day too on those easels. Mom had saved all of our handprints that they did of all 10 of us in plaster. Mine was blue. What ever happened to those? I saw someone slouching during storybook time, and it looked comfortable, so I did too. Mr. Smith, ( Smitty the crossing guard ) came in and talked about trains. We all got in a line and choo-chooed around the room. We also had to play stop n go, walking in single file around the room like a car, with her wearing all 3 colors of a stop light around her neck, covering 2 colors at a time with her hands. Those see-saws on the big kids playground were dangerous, and mean kids took them over. Someone was always getting hurt out there. There was a fire in the Science Lab and we all evacuated. I remember the fire and smoke. They let us take a tour and look at the room afterwards so we could see what playing with fire could do to a place. Northwood Elementary is torn down now, and gone…. Those were some of the best years of my life, meeting new kids in the neighborhood and finding out that there was a whole big world out there that I kept hearing about from all my older siblings. I can imagine it being scary for the oldest kids in a family, having to be the first one to go. I climbed the steps to the train there at 12 and Vinsetta and found a Playboy Magazine, and all kinds of things that Mom would have freaked out over if she ever knew. You have to wonder how many things a kid gets into that nobody ever knows about. I used to pick berries and acorns for my mom and dad and give them to them when I got home and dad got home from work.

    I still remember the Acorn Song ” I’m a little acorn brown, lying on the cold cold ground. Someone came and stepped on me. That is why I’m cracked you see. I’m a nut. I’m a nut.” Mom n Dad laughed so hard when I sang that….