Kindergarten Days

When I was a kid in kindergarten, my mom used to pack these little aluminum cans of chocolate pudding in my lunch. Man, weren't those the good old days when the greatest thing we could imagine was going to the playground and sliding on the big slide, and the worst thing we could imagine was broccoli.

Though I don't remember much from my days in Bellingraph Kingergarten, here are a few memories which are still with me all these years later, like my teachers Miss Casey and Miss Fleming. Miss Casey had blonde hair cut in a bob, and a pretty smile. Miss Casey sported a buffant hair style. I remember telling her I never wanted to grow up because I was having too much fun as a kid. She must have asked me how I was going to manage not to grow up. I remember wondering if walking around with a cement block on my head would help me to stay little. Luckily, I did not try it.

The Big Slide! How much fun that was UNTIL the day I feel off the top of it. I must have been loitering as I sat there trying to find the courage to slide down. Instead, I fell off the side and hit the ground. These years later I wonder did some kid get tired of waiting and push me out of the way? No one admitted it at the time.
If it was you, I forgive you.

The little Asian kid. I promise to you I am not making this up. There was an Asian boy in my class. He was short, but very polite. On the way back from the playground, he sometimes would ask me, "May I flip you over." If I said "yes", he would take my arm and flip me completely over his shoulder. Years later in seventh grade, I met this kid named Bo who looked a lot like the kid I had flipped for. I asked him if it was him. I don't remember if it was, but from that day on, he would laugh, and say to me, "May I flip you over?" By the seventh grade, I knew to say "No."

Eddie and the rock. Somebody threw a rock at Eddie. It hit him in the head, and there was blood. I was not the one who threw the rock.

We learned "School days" and "This land is my land" for our end of the year assembly. To this day I still want to go see that Redwood Forest.

So, what's your favorite memory of Kindergarten?