Kindergarten?

Kindergarten?

Lots of folks in these parts are talking childhood memories and especially they seem to have narrowed in on kindergarten. I've been kind of reluctant to write about my kindergarten... but then again there is something deep inside of me pushing to get out... something that wants to be exposed to the light of day. I'm a little worried I'll go too far. I don't want to make people uncomfortable or anything. Don't worry, there's no sex or physical violence involved. At least not in this story. But I know it makes ME uncomfortable to think about it.

You see, I don't remember my kindergarten year at all. I find this very strange, because I have some very clear and very real memories going all the way back to when I was two-ish. I remember when my parents brought my brother home from the hospital.

I was 29 months old and it is clear as day. My mom got really fat and grumpy and then she got a tummy ache. My grandma and grandpa came over and then I went to stay with them. When my dad finally brought me home, I went and looked in this big white basket. There was a baby doll in there... but the baby doll pulled my hair. My dad told me not to stick my head in the basket anymore. I put my head in the basket and shook it around so the hair would flap in the baby doll's face. The baby doll pulled my hair again. My dad spanked me and told me to leave the baby alone.

Then there was the time a few months later when my dad decided it was time to eat the chickens he was raising. He wasn't getting any eggs from them and they were too expensive to maintain. I remember the hellish screaming coming from the coop. I ran to my bed and cried, but the screaming wouldn't stop. That night I had a nightmare that a huge chicken (maybe twenty feet tall or more) came and killed my dad.

I remember getting to milk the cows at our neighbor's house and then taking the warm milk to make ice cream for our BBQ that afternoon.

I remember buying candy at the near by general store with my babysitter / girlfriend and then sneaking it back into the house without my dad knowing. My babysitter / girlfriend showed me how to walk sideways while holding something behind my back.

I remember when my babysitter's sister married her brother... well, they weren't really brother and sister. The boy was an orphan an my babysitter's family was his foster family. He fell in love with their oldest daughter and they got married. There was a lot of whispering about that. I remember how confused I was by the grown-up's behavior. I now know that their actions would be named things like "two faced" and "stabbing them in the back." But then it was really, really confusing.

I remember when I went through the glass window and I had to get over two hundred stiches. They did the work in the OR using only local pain killers. I had at least four nurses and / or orderlies holding me down. When the pain killers started to take affect, I really enjoyed talking with the doctors and nurses and they couldn't get me to shut up. They finally said if I would be quiet for a little while, they would give me money to get a Dairy Queen on the way home.

All of these things and many, many more happened while my family was living in West Virginia. When I was four my family moved to Pittsburgh. I have an equally impressive number of memories from Pittsburgh... up until Kindergarten.

I remember getting ready from my pre-kindergarten orientation. I was so excited to go to school. My dad was always very pro-education and even before I entered Kindergarten he had me totally psyched to go to college. I wanted to grow up and be a teacher. I could hardly wait to start school.

So, on the day of my pre-kindergarten orientation I was taking a bath. I was sitting in the tub and I was so excited to finally be going to the orientation I could hardly stand myself. I was going to burst.

While I was still sitting in the tub, my mom came into the bathroom. I remember I was chattering on and on about how I was so happy and how I couldn't wait for school and it was going to be so wonderful and it was a dream come true and I must be the luckiest girl in the world and I can't wait to learn stuff and I want to read books -- not just look at the pictures and this is just going to be so great.

My mom was putting her lipstick on. She had her back to me. She said, "What are you so happy about?"

I started to repeat my litany of excitement, but she stopped me mid-way. "I don't know why you're so happy about school. You're going to hate it."

She walked over to the tub. "Look at you. You're ugly. No one likes the ugly girl. And you're really ugly. You won't have any friends. And look at how fat you are." (Note: at the time I was stocky or chubby, but I was NOT fat. At least not then.) She grabbed at the skin of my stomach. She pinched it really hard and it hurt really bad. "You're a pig! Look at you. You're fat and stupid and you're an ugly pig! And you smell. Don't think that bath is going to make you smell good. You have a real strong stench. All the other kids are going to hate you. Everyone hates stinky, smelly people. Even the other smelly people. Oh and you think you're so smart... You can't fool the teachers. They'll take one look at you and know you're a stupid pig. What am I going to do with you... such a fat, ugly, stupid, smelly thing... And you're happy about going to school? Just proves your stupid." She went on, but I think you get the gist.

The next thing I can remember is meeting my FIRST GRADE teacher. I lost more than a year. Well, there are a couple of things that happened at home during this year (or at least I think they maight have occured during that year.) I don't know. My kindergarten memory is messed up.

But the funny thing... the time in the bath tub before the kindergarten orientation... those moments are frozen in my mind. I'm sitting on the toilet seat watching my mom talk to me and I'm watching me sitting in the tub of water. I remember the water and the room suddenly got very, very cold. I can feel my chin start to tremble and I can still feel the tears stinging the insides of my eye lids... but I knew I couldn't cry. I had to just sit there and be very still and not fight with her and not cry because if I did anything it might just make her madder and that was NOT a good thing.