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My first day of kindergarten brought no tears or desperate clinging. I could hardly wait to enter the big, sunny classroom, and I barely waved goodbye to my mother.
That was a sharp contrast with my brother Bobby’s introduction to school.
Bobby, who later became an über jock known to teammates as “Ace,” was deeply attached to our mother as a little boy. When she took him to his kindergarten classroom, he cried and held on so tightly that she stayed for the entire session—a half day in those years.
The next morning, my mother found the classroom door closed and knocked. The teacher opened it only a crack, took Bobby by the hand, pulled him inside and shut the door in my mother’s face.
She cried all the way home. But both she and Bobby learned an important lesson: School was not a family activity.
I entered kindergarten in January under a half-year enrollment system, which may explain why no photograph survives from that first day. After I completed the half year, the system changed, and I attended for another full year.
Each day began on a large round rug in the middle of the classroom. We gathered for circle time, recited the Pledge of Allegiance and then moved on to sharing or listening as our teacher read a story.
By the time I left kindergarten, I had the place figured out.
At tables seating four children, we colored from a communal crayon box—and I appointed myself its keeper, distributing colors to classmates who asked nicely. I also learned to get in line early for one of the easels, where we painted pictures to take home to our mothers.
Finger painting was part of the experience, too, though much of the paint seemed to end up on me instead of the paper.
Our talented teacher played the piano, filling the classroom with music and games. I loved Musical Chairs and Farmer in the Dell, even when the farmer did not choose me as his wife. I was content to play the cheese or even the rat.
A childhood friend remembers London Bridge and Ring Around the Rosie, although neither ranked among my favorites. She also recalls drinking milk from tiny glass bottles. I have no memory of that, which likely means it was plain white milk. Chocolate would have been unforgettable.
Nap time was the one part of kindergarten I disliked. On my first day, I brought a small rug labeled with my name. We had to lie on our rugs while soothing music played, but I had stopped taking naps years earlier and found the whole exercise painfully dull.
Occasionally, a child wet their pants. The rest of us felt embarrassed for them—and quietly relieved it had not happened to us.
The year’s highlight arrived at Christmastime. Our teacher placed each child in a spotlight, traced the resulting profile shadow onto black construction paper, cut it out and mounted it on a large sheet of gray paper. She then wrapped every silhouette so each student had a Christmas present for their parents.
She created those handmade gifts for 28 children, a feat of patience and effort that seems even more remarkable now.
Those cheerful early classroom experiences helped establish my lifelong love of school. By the time I posed for a photograph on my first day of first grade, the happiness on my face said it all.