Monday, May 4, 2009

Moogs

I forget what we really named them, but we invented pets in 5th Grade, Eddie and I. We took the brown paper hand towels in the Boy's Room and soaked them in water and folded them up a certain way to have the appearance of something like a salamander without legs. We called them something like moogs and kept them in a pail and played with them at home and kept them in our desks at school.

Fifth Grade was an awkward age for me; Eddie and I used to walk around the classroom on our haunches, talking some kind of baby talk; Annette exclaimed one day in disgust, "I think Scott's a BABY!" Meanwhile, it was time to start thinking about Important things like getting onto a Little League baseball team.

Spring was exciting in the 5th and 6th Grade; it was when some guys tried out for the Bonneville Little League teams and if they made it, they got to walk to school wearing their team caps - all bright and brand new. My dad didn't let me try out in 5th Grade because it was always held at dinner time and he didn't want me drinking all the pop and eating the candy. But he relented in 6th Grade and I wound up on the minor league Yankees. Wearing that uniform was a lot of fun but playing in the games was sometimes scary. One day, my neighbor, my buddy's dad, had to substitute for our coach during a game. So suddenly, I was pulled from Right Field onto the pitcher's mound for the entire game. I did okay! I found I was a lot less nervous and a little more skilled on the pitcher's mound. I went back to Right Field when Coach returned.

Speaking of uniforms, we got to wear our cub scout uniforms to school on occasion when we became cub scouts. We loved our uniforms. It was a good way to brainwash us to go to war when we were older. We loved to pretend such, but we never actually wanted to go, not me anyway. I had a set of army fatigues (pants and shirt) when I was about 6 or 8. That was almost too cool.

In the neighborhood, we were usually playing army, hide and seek or baseball. We often wrestled as well.

My Teachers

I may not get all the Misses and Mrs's correctly, or the spelling, but here's my teachers:

Kindergarten, Miss Bigelow; First, Miss Utly (she had me talking in clear, precise English with no twangs, fudges, abbreviations or slang - no cowboy talk. My mother loved it while it lasted. But when I soon realized that it wasn't the cool way my 9th-Grade brother was talking, I stopped it); Second, Miss Synnegaard; Third, Mrs. Simpson (and we sometimes went to Miss Irving's); Fourth, Miss Locker, who may well have been the most popular teacher in the school; Fifth, Miss Hansen (Her brother Doug played for the Salt Lake Angels); Sixth, Miss Ballif. In Fifth, we rotated to the other teachers, but I only remember Mrs. Lundblade and there was a man and I don't remember his name. In Sixth, we rotated to Mrs. Lignell (who if she ever finished a sentence, she finished it later on) and - I forget. I'll have to work on this later.

Talking to Girls

I was severely in love for the first time when I was 6.

I first talked to a girl when I was 17.

I went on my first date when I was 15.

I had my first girlfriend and knew it when I was 19.

That pretty much tells it. Augggh! The things we'd do differently!

Marbles

Marble season was big. I don't know if any boy was not affected or infected. Perhaps it was the gambling bug as our mentors feared, who tried to keep us from "winning" each other's marbles because it was gambling, they said.

In the East yard, which was largely asphalt (although there was grass, sand, slides and tricky bars between the concrete adjacent to the front of the school and the asphalt that stretched to the fancy iron fence out front), near the fancy iron fence out front, circles for playing traditional games of marbles were painted yellow on the ground. But the ground was somewhat unsmooth so we never used them hardly. The joy of marbles was to collect the pretty things and the more you had in your marble bag, the happier you got. And the more of them that were big ("boulders," we called them), the happier you got. So here's how to build your marble dynasty: You take your little marble bag that came with 6 or 12 little marbles that your mom bought you, and you approach the front fence where the guys with boulders sat, back to fence, legs spread out, with their boulder set up near their crotch. You waited your turn and then from about 3 or 4 feet away, shot your marble (with a thumb flip) at the boulder. If you hit it, it became yours and you could set it up like they had done. But every marble you shot into his leg corral that did not hit the boulder became his and went straight into his big bag. That's how you got a lot of marbles and you had better have a big bag to hold them (with draw strings, of course) before you try setting up a boulder. If you were a fool, you could use a boulder to try to win a boulder, though it did make it easier to hit. You were really cooking when you had several boulders in your possession at one time, in addition to a big bag full of marbles. My friend Eddie was pretty successful; had a pretty big bag. I still love new, shiny marbles - especially aggies. And I still like to play traditional marbles - on a smooth floor. Skating on some you didn't see is pretty fun too.

Gifted

I was gifted. Never tested for it, but I could tell myself I was smart.

I never performed well in school; I often fell behind in some subjects. Excepting a few intervals of brilliant classwork, I was generally an average student at best. But walking to and from grade school, through the high school parking lot, I could tell that in my own way, I was very very smart. I would tell myself about it. I just wasn't smart enough to figure out in what way. Or what to do about it.

I was bored through most of public school. By junior high, I forgot all about being smart somehow. I thought I was just dumb. But I wasn't; I was bored. When I'm bored, I do not perform well at all. Not at all. Worse than most. Public school was not the only institution where I failed to realize my potential because of this. Working for the Navy was the same old story. There simply was no challenge for my talents to sink their teeth into. The only challenge, and it proved too great for me, was to get interested in tedium and senselessness.

I have had family members and bosses from different groups, situations and companies tell me I'm the most imaginative or creative kid or engineer they have known. Meanwhile, I was getting a flunk in school or held back from a raise or promotion - even put on probation not infrequently.

What's my point? Don't have one, not today. This blog is simply about memories and colors. Gifted? You bet. I have been given much and have enjoyed it immensely. My favorite gift, though I have not always fostered it, is the love I feel toward the people I have known. And I love colors. Truly, the best things in life are free in terms of money. But not in terms of cultivation.

Snow Days

Here in the East, we have what are called Snow Days. A snow day is more officially referred to as a Delay or Cancellation. They occur very routinely (you can watch the local TV news before school starts and see whether they are calling one for your school that day) and are called on account of snow or freezing rain or severe cold. Sometimes, you cannot tell why they must be calling one.

We never had a Delay or Cancellation in Utah, that I know of. But I remember when we had a Snow Day in the 5th Grade. It was very exciting.

It snowed so much, they sent us home to get our snow shovels. We spent the day shoveling the snow at the school. That's about all I remember. They may have given us hot chocolate, I don't know. But I remember being there with my snow shovel. Awesome.

Did I already mention this stuff? If so, you're hearing it again - maybe with a better style.

We had snowball wars at recess out on the South grass field. We built forts and we charged each other (by each, I mean each army, not each kid). We had two huge armies every recess. Must have been 30 to 50 boys in each army if not more, each recess. No one was ever hurt, and I have no recollection of adult regulation, though we may have been lectured a bit on being careful not to throw ice or rocks. No one ever lost an eye. Good clean fun.

I'm sure I already mentioned how we walked to school every day through the snow in our Levi's and canvas shoes and spent the rest of the day in class with wet lower legs and wet feet that squeaked. I guess it didn't matter that we were wet-footed; it was plenty warm in the building with those iron radiators. But I doubt it would have mattered if it were cold; something strange but true about males under the age of 18, they just don't seem to notice such things hardly. Or if they do, they are utterly helpless to improve their condition.

But one day in kindergarten, I showed up with Levi's wet to the hip. My teacher had me go to the playhouse (vertical-slot magazine shelves and bookcases arranged in a corner of the room to form an enclosed square of space by the window) and take off my shoes, socks and pants. She kept me sitting in there with my towel wrapped around my waist until clear through playtime. The playhouse was restricted from other students during playtime that day. This did not prevent several of them from creeping up around me (she had sat me near the entrance) and pointing to a small breach in my wrap and observing that they could see my underwear. Kind of irregular feeling to sit there in class with your very pants hung up high on the wall, drying on the radiator. I wasn't permanently damaged though. I don't think anything does permanent damage in kindergarten unless it has to do with an adult; that's before any of the kids start getting really mean.

I'm certain I mentioned it in another post, but just in case, and since it belongs here anyway, we used to find any way we could to ditch our boots somewhere along the way to school. Having dry, comfortable feet was the last thing on our mind. So whenever possible, I would leave mine in the ditch by our house. One day on the way home, Junior, my buddy, threw my boots (no wonder I didn't have them on my feet) into the middle of a large puddle where I could not reach them without getting too wet. So there was trouble when I got home. I don't remember how it was resolved though.

Junior moved to Washington State after some time in the 1st Grade. He lived just up the street and used to go to church with me. I knew him when we were in the 4-6 year old interval. I had not seen nor heard from him since, but I finally got back in touch with him last month on Facebook.

I usually came the quarter-mile home for lunch from grade school. On cold snow days, Mother most commonly fed me cream-style corn from the can, heated up with milk. And bread and butter. Loved that stuff.

One more thing about snow: In the middle of the night after a big, fresh snow fall, the entire neighborhood would be under at least six inches of untouched, unspoiled snow - the ground, the wire in the fences, the twigs and branches of the trees - everything covered smooth. And because everything had a white fresh blanket on it, it was bright! No electric lights at all, but a white glow that let you see everything clearly - even at a distance. In later years, after I was 12 years old, I always slept out in the loft in our garage, by an open window, with my brother and sister. So we often got to see Winter Glow in the middle of the night, like if we went into the house to go to the bathroom. I was always intensely romantic and when I would see this in and after high school, I would dream of the day I would have a girl I could share it with and walk through it with. Never happened. The kids came to fast and the timing was always off and we only lived there one winter - but not in that neighborhood. We were up in the "Avenues." I grew up down in the flats near downtown, in a more or less pretty part of town with relatively little vehicular traffic.

I also frequently shoveled snow at home, which is a nice memory.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Sex Education

In 5th grade, a mysterious blue (or was it pink?) paper was discreetly passed out to the girls but you cannot keep a secret like that from the boys. We found out what the papers said in short order. But we didn't know what they meant. Something about a "maturation" program. What's this about, we asked. The teacher explained that the girls would be attending a special lecture. Why not us? As best as she possibly could break it to us, the teacher explained that girls mature physically earlier than boys. Todd protested, "GIRLS AREN'T MATURE!!!" Todd was one of the "secondary" big guy on campus guys. Secondary, meaning that he wasn't quite as perfect and suave as Bill and his ilk. But he was confident, athletic, good-looking and everything - just a little rough around the edges - not a pro cool like Bill. He was buddies with Lloyd. Not relevant.

I remember how strange this new development felt. Maturation. Hmm. We went outside and commiserated. I hung with Blaine. Blaine was not big or musclular. Not a big guy on campus. More or less like me but not as quiet. Anyway, it turns out that he was an excellent wrestler and we used to wrestle. Funny how I wrestled an awful lot with all my friends since as early as I can remember and yet I never had an inkling to think I may actually be a wrestler until I was in high school. Funny. 'Course, I didn't know there was such a thing as wrestling as a sport until then. Anyway -

We went outside and tried to come to grips with Maturation and the fact that the girls had it and we didn't. We found a way out: The girls were "nasty." They were going to a "nasty" lecture and as a reward, they were going to be served refreshments. For being nasty. Huh. Blaine said, mocking, "I'm going to (here he said something I cannot repeat), and they're going to give me 30 hotcakes!" It felt very strange.

The next year, we got our lecture. Bill's dad came and sat with him, which was an option, but most of our dads could not get off work. I don't think mothers were invited. Mothers all came last year with the girls. I think. I was glad my dad wasn't there. Bill's dad was all brimming with poise and confidence and friendliness, and Bill seemed to take it well, but I'll bet he had just as soon not had him there. Or maybe I'm wrong, since nothing there was Bill couldn't handle. Anyway, a doctor came and drew some intimate pictures with chalk and gave a lecture and told us it was normal and okay to masturbate and we left without saying or asking anything. Bill's dad just smiled. No one ventured to protest the viewpoint given on masturbation. But I assume Bill heard about it. But I never did.

So it was a little strange but not a big deal, and we did not get any cake or fancy favors.

Now that I've had time to think about it, I do seem to remember that the girls got a pink paper and we got blue.

Blaine said he had followed one of the girls home after their lecture and she had picked up a rock and was weight lifting with it as she walked. We wondered what all kind of stuff they had been told. I still wonder.

I had asked my Dad about the Birds and the Bees I had heard so much about, a year or two earlier. We rarely ate in the dining room, but for some reason I was alone with my parents at dinner - in the dining room - when I was 9 or 10. I said (in all light nonchalantness and sarcasm), "Dad, so tell me about the birds and the bees!" I had not the slightest concept that it had a remote thing to do with physiology.

Dad swallowed his heart back down his throat and proceeded to tell me point blank and business-like, all the necessary details about the wonderful baby invitation process in marriage.

I have never been so blindsided. I asked frantically, "Are you sure there isn't any other way?" They said there wasn't, and when the time came, I probably wouldn't mind so much and not to worry. I went out and sat in the dark night on the front steps. Just weeks before, I had straightened my friend Kevin out on the subject of reproduction: Kevin had learned an off-color riddle from his older sister that inferred that a baby was born out the front. I had to take the poor fool aside and explain that a baby is born out the back side and that a mom becomes pregnant only when she is married and when the man she is married to and her kiss - that when they kiss, something travels down into her stomach and that's how it works. Anybody who had seen anything before knew a baby could never fit out the front.

Or so I thought until I found out different.

So anyway, I found out what the hoopla was about the Birds and the Bees and later on, that masturbation is NOT okay. Don't laugh: I'm serious.

The Chimney

There was a hot metal door at the base of the tall chimney at the back of the school, between the 4th and 5th Grade playgrounds that you could spit on and it would sizzle. Or on occasion, perhaps pee and make it stink.

To the North, there was the entrance the milk man and maintenance people used exclusively, and a little further North, steps going below ground to some doors no one ever used to enter the building, but we played on the steps. This was just East of the monkey bars (the kind you hang from while you cross to the other side, swinging from bar to bar). North of that were the steps going up into the building at which the 4th Graders lined up.

In addition to Hot Wheels, home-made spool tanks were popular on the playground that year. The kind you make from a thread spool, rubber band and stick, and you wind it up and it goes.

I'm not sure whether it was 4th or 5th Grade in which we were introduced to volleyball. We assembled at the net on the West side, just inside the 5th Grade playground area, near the tetherball poles. The teacher had us play regular volleyball except that we caught the ball and threw it instead of it bouncing off our hands.

Hot Wheels

Hot Wheels were born in 4th Grade. Christmas, 1969. Dad got a whole handful or two when they first appeared in the stores and a couple of track sets with the powerhouses, and brought them to us Christmas morning. My brother and I put the two track sets together into one long oval with a powerhouse in the middle of each straightaway. We had most of the debut models that first day. I still have them, though some are a bit race-weary. I still collect the new ones I like - they are only a dollar. Can you believe it?

We brought them to school. We would go over to Dennis' house during lunch recess and see his new Boss Mustang hot wheel that came out after the debut. White. We would play with them out by the two cottonwood (or were they box elder?) giants that grew through the asphalt in the middle of the 4th Grade playground.

Flea Bag

I won't mention her name, though I know it as well as my own. But we called her flea bag. She had siblings in other grades who were not out and out flea bags in our opinion, but who we considered to have some fleas also, just the same.

I suppose that we thought they were homely because they were probably a bit gaunt from lack of food. They were downright dirty and ragged too. We avoided touching them and the things they touched.

In hindsight, I think flea bag could have been a fashion model in New York City by now (or by 1980, shall we say). She had one of those strikingly-handsome-in-an-exotic-way faces. But back then, at that age, we could not notice such a thing under the circumstances.

Haven't seen or heard a thing of her since, that I can remember. Auggggh, the things we'd do different!

No Butts

It was in about the 4th or 5th Grade, judging from where we were on the playground that recess. It was winter and ice-covered puddles were present on the basketball courts near the West fence that separated us from the high school practice field.

Speaking of the high school practice field, we used to sometimes see the high school athletes way off in the distance doing their thing. One time Bill mocked the way they were running - kind of prancing along on their toes in big, low-frequency leaps. Bill was pretty much The big kid on campus. He started a thing in 6th grade where you hang from the highest pull up bar and swing as high as you could and then at the highest point where you're facing the ground, let go and drop. He broke his arm doing it. Got a cast and everything. So he was in a cast for a while. He may've been Scottish. Had dark straight hair and blue eyes, girls. And all the confidence and humor and sociability. Anyway -

I had my buddies - all two or three of them, but often I was in the mood to be alone. This day, I was sitting alone on the asphalt berm at the base of the West fence just imagining things or whatever. By the ice-covered puddles of the basketball courts. I don't remember who, but two smart girls came walking by on the other side of the ice and called out, "Hey Scott, what are you doing, sitting over there on your butt?"

I was embarrassed that they would think of the fact that I had a backside, let alone mention it out loud. I said back, "I don't have one!" This made it worse. I was so embarrassed.

What Instrument You Gonna Play?

An elite group of kids were those who walked home lugging the case of some musical instrument.

It always seemed ironic to me that my buddy Kevin (who was always the tough) carried a violin case - one with a violin in it. Meanwhile, I never did carry an instrument; here's why:

On a certain day in 4th grade, they tell you to raise your hand if you want to learn to play a musical instrument. If you do, they line you up in the hall and march you to the auditorium where you stay standing in line and they go down the line having each of you tell what instrument you would like to play. I was the only one who said 'guitar.'

They probably didn't know I meant classical guitar, like my brother Ben. It's not like you never hear a guitar with an orchestra or piano on TV or radio. As typically occurs in my life about every hour that I am talking where people are present, I was dead serious and everybody laughed. It always happened at the dinner table since I was 2 years old. It always happened in Sunday School as a young single guy. It always happened when I spoke in church. Whenever I was most serious, it got a big laugh. Sometimes I liked being so funny, but for the most part, I was frustrated that no one would listen to my most earnest communications - it hurt most at home. Not that I would trade any of it. Anyway -

The orchestra guy laughed and said, "Does he always do something like this to get out of class?" and my friend Russell stepped out of line and said (saving face for me), laughing, "Yes, he always does!" -As if I weren't the shy quiet type that I was.

So they sent me back to the classroom. I never made a peep about it. Wouldn't have made a difference I suppose, since they just plain didn't teach guitar in school then - certainly not in the orchestra. But until that moment, I had no clue the guitar was any less commonly found in the orchestra pit than the violin. I got my first guitar when I was about 32. I'll be able to say I play the guitar when I'm about 72.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Erica Sanchez

Very cute girl and she was nice to me. Really liked her a lot and sort of intended to fall in love with her some day but never got around to it to the point that I got overly nervous. I sat right by her and that helped keep it real. I used to pretty much go through the winter with wet pants and shoes from the walks through the snow, as I have mentioned, so I seemed to have a perpetual cold also. I guess I had been constantly sniffing so one day Erica blurted out, "Scott, Use a Kleenex!" I was surprised and enlightened because I had thought that anything was better than hearing someone blow their nose in public and that is why I had just kept on sniffing. That was Sixth Grade.

Erica got into gymnastics, which eventually would have meant that I would have worshipped her, but after the Seventh Grade, she moved away or whatever. Really great girl, she was. Got up and spoke at a rally in the Junior High auditorium once. Very cute. Very nice. Very real. Very honest. Often wore long pigtails. More or less blonde hair, or light brown.

Fifth

Don't remember her name anymore. Liked some girl with bushy blonde hair in Fifth Grade. I think she was only there for a year.

Nanette Barrutia and Linda Ramos

Fourth Grade was interesting because we had half of our class filled with Third-Graders. Some weeks, I liked Nanette more than Linda and other weeks, Linda more than Nanette. When it came time to give them valentines, I naturally edited theirs specially. Like where it originally said "Be Mine" I wrote "Don't" in front of it, and so forth.

I got in trouble for this. I don't remember whether an adult was involved. Mainly it was one of the girls in the class that spread the news of this mean deed around the classroom. I don't know how many years may have passed before they all realized why I had done it.

In case you still don't get it, I did it because I had a crush on them.

Russell was my buddy at school, all through elementary school. He was in my class this year and had the exact same thing going on with Nanette and Linda (who were best friends, by the way). We had to wrestle after school sometimes to settle who had to settle for the second-best loved girl of the two, whoever that may have been. It changed from time to time; sometimes we liked the same girl best and other times we didn't have to compete. - As if we ever talked to them or anything anyway, but it was important to settle between ourselves nonetheless.

Linda had straight, shiny black hair, bobbed.

Nanette had long brown ringlets, tied back.

Leslie Smith

Third Grade, Leslie Smith. I think. It's been a while since I told my sister but I know Leslie is in there somewhere. But I don't remember anything else about it.

However, we used to shoot notes up and down the aisles between our desks, and one time I got one from Linda Perkins that said "I love you." This was exciting. Never said a word to her though, I don't think, nothing personal anyway. Like I would have any idea of any personal thing to say.

It probably fulfilled her as well.

Unless I checked the wrong box and shot it back up the aisle - but I don't remember. No, I don't think this note had boxes to check. So it was probably all good.

But this did little to shake my conviction that no girl would ever want me. But it did boost my confidence from Gollum level to about wall flower level.

Second Grade was Level-Headed

I don't think there was anyone in the Second Grade.

When You're a Kid and You Think No One is Listening

Just when you think you're safe and secret, which is a secure feeling I always craved as a kid, you probably are being watched, listened to, or are in someones intuitive radar range.

I used to have all kinds of secret, quiet, sacred places around my yard. I used to dream of having my own secret hole under the grass by the tennis courts on the town square across from where my mother grew up. In this hole, I was basically just buried under the grass but with a golf ball sized hole to breathe. No one could get my back.

Anyway, one night I was sleeping in the garage with my sister but not in the loft. We thought it was just us. We were staying up and talking. It was always very hard for me to quit talking and say goodnight to my sister, especially if she would go to sleep first. I would sometimes have to ask her if she was asleep yet. Come to think of it, I have always been that way ever since. All through my 20's even, I just could never let the night end, whether with my friends or alone after they crashed. I took many a night ride on the old Triumph.

So anyway, we were talking and I told her the name of each girl I loved in each grade I had been in so far. I'm not sure when it was - I guess all the way up through about the 8th grade. After I finished this saga, my brother's voice came from the loft to be quiet so he could sleep. I was mortified. I could tell my sister that stuff, but not my brother - not like that.

Susan - she was the first

In the first grade, we each had our own desk. One day, we got a new girl in our class - she was pretty girly. I hated her. She sat behind me and to the right. So I kept one eye on her to see what she did and made sure I didn't do the same. Like how she had her feet or whether she sucked on her pencil.

After a couple of days or weeks or maybe it was just a day, I fell in love with a girl for the very first time, i.e., Susan. Musta been watching her too closely.

At some point, she dropped her little plastic, gold-painted toy ring and lost it. Being fully cognizant, I picked it up after school. Gold was rubbed off and it was broken into 2 or 3 pieces. I sucked on it all the way home. In order to get all her germs.

Whoa!

That's all I remember.

Gina Webb

Gina was cute so I had to like her too.

I grew up thinking I would never be able to marry because I would never know how or have the guts to make it through a date, plus I knew that no girl would ever want me since I had red hair.

However, during a phase of temporary insanity, in the 8th grade, in Mr. McCleve's art class, wherein we were watching a movie on closed-circuit TV, I sort of forgot my convictions and found myself playing footsie with Gina who was sitting in front of me.

I really liked her a lot, but I guess I didn't love her enough to be too too nervous. I should have. She was very cute and very cool.

Anyway, at some later point, she approached me in the hall and asked me whether I intended to go to the stomp (definition: after school dance where some girls dance with some boys and stomp their feet to simulate dancing while BTO records are played loudly and most of the kids stand holding up the walls). I said no I had not planned on it. Well, go. Why? And then I'm not sure how the conversation ended. Probably that IS how it ended. Anyway, knowing I had red hair and all of that, it did not occur to me at the time that she wanted me to go for any particular reason. And that was that.

Love you Gina. Hope you're well.

Sandra Lovato

When I was 12, I had a crush on Sandra Lovato. In the backs of the comic books and the Boy's Life's, the prize I coveted most for selling seeds was the bugle. I thought it would be cool to blow reveille out the back door in her honor before going to school each day. I never said nuthin' to her. No, I don't mean about the bugle - I mean nuthin.' Then we broke up.

Here's my ritual: when I officially fell in love with her (after thinking about it after the first day of 7th grade, in the garage loft where I and my brother and sister always slept, and thinking that yeah, I could love this girl), I wrote her name on a small scrap of paper - or maybe it was mushier, like Scott & Sandra or something. I then tore it into small pieces and wrapped the pieces up in another small piece of paper and enclosed it in masking tape while attaching it to a cotton string which I wore around my neck (waking, sleeping or taking a bath) for most of the 7th grade. Then one day in Spring, with a bunch of guys playing softball during gym, feeling comradery with them, and macho, I decided I'd had enough of this relationship and I told them so. So that was it - no more crush and after school, up in the ditch behind the garage, I performed the closing ceremony: unwrap the shredded note, glue it all back together and burn the whole thing. Boy - and my sister-in-law said I wasn't romantic. Huh.

There is a place on Mt. Timpanogos near the saddle (ridge) just below the summit where you can kind of make your way off the trail and over to a spring and some small cliffs. One day, while I was still in this relationship, I pulled one of the square rocks (formed by freezing and thawing?) out from the cliff and wrote on the part that would be inside when I put it back, some other mushy note about Sandra, like maybe her name and maybe mine. And stuck it back in.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Introduction

The following is a collection of my childhood memories. I do not guarantee absolute accuracy, but I do guarantee I'm not making it up; it's all from my actual visual memory, though some details may have changed order, size, shape or color while in storage.

I was starting kinnygarden today. I would learn how to spell and pronounce it years later. I hopped a 180 and landed on my hands and knees over my newly ironed, brown and tan plaid shirt I was to put on, that mother had laid on the clean rug near the front room (which served as my bedroom and whoever else lived at the house that wasn't a girl or a parent).

I lined up with the other kids for our first day outside in front of the stairs. I seem to remember leaves on the ground. A sculpted masonry marquee over the entrance (which was about a half a dozen steps above ground - imagine that: Of all the other entrances into the school, the kindergarten had the highest above ground. The 4th grade had one above ground, but not as high; the rest had ground level entrances from outside, but once inside on the tile, there were indoor stairs to climb) that read, "KINDERGARTEN ~ 1910." But I could not read.

I was second-to-last in line. LJ was behind me. He had a tie.

I remember the door. I remember approaching and passing through it when I was late one day and terrified, even though my brother John was with me.

The school was had a smooth stucco veneer, painted white with turquois or aqua trim. It stayed that way through my career.

A well-maintained, black-painted iron fence lined the entire front of the school. It had a concrete base about a foot high. We used to walk along the sloped top of the base, holding onto the iron. One day after school as we were so engaged (but I was not present), the twins' little sister was crushed into the iron by a car that had gone off the road. It made a concave spot in the iron. She lived.

We had fallout shelter signs on the poles along the street, but we never really realized what they were. I don't remember doing the drills. I started kindergarten in 1965.

Sometimes kids fell on their head from the jungle gyms and stuff. Bill broke his arm swinging on the high pullup bar when he dropped to the ground. We didn't have anything special under the various bars, just sand or hard asphalt. The girls twirled on the girl twirl bars in front of the 1st grade. They usually used their coats under their crooked knee as they clasped their hands under the bar and in front of their shin. Their hair would sweep the sand below, raising a dust sometimes, and digging the hole deeper.

We all steered clear of girls. Twirling was one thing they could do better. We kind of ignored that. Wrote it off as a sissy thing.

My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Bigelow. But then it was Mrs. Nelson, I think. Something to do with a rearrangement because of someone having a baby.

We always had to wear our boots (galoshes) out of the house if there was snow. This would have kept our pants and feet dry if we ever wore them all the way to school. We would ditch them in the irrigation ditch if we felt lucky. Until I was in high school, I always had wet Converse on my feet and wet Levi's on my legs in winter. If I had had a cold and was coughing up sputem, my Levi's would be all the wetter because I didn't know what else to do with it; I would spit into my hand and wipe it on my thigh. It soaked it up well enough and dried before school was out.

I still have my purple bath towel with some adhesive medical tape sewn in one corner for to write my name, which has since all washed off. But the tape is still intact. This is a magic towel; I still have all these memories because I kept the towel. I just made that up. Anyway, this towel was for laying on to take a nap every day. A girl used to get to be the fairy and wake us up one by one by touching us with a wand with a star on the end. And there was a crown for her to wear. I don't know that I ever went to sleep though.

We learned to tell time in the second grade. We had workbooks for it. I didn't get it. I learned how later on. In second grade, it was our last year before they had school lunches. I remember having dry, salted thanksgiving turkey and butter between two slices of homemade, whole wheat bread, which was even drier, wrapped in wax paper (enabling it to dry the more), for my lunch to eat at my desk. After school, we cleaned off our desks, put our chairs upside down on top of the desk, and stood at attention until dismissed. I had a private tradition of choosing and humming a top-40 tune in my head at this point, in preparation for having a top-40 tune stuck in my head as I went about the rest of my day at home. I remember one day in particular: I chose "All the Lonely People." By the Beatles, of course. I remember Colleen Strong from that year. I remember her exclaiming to me as we lined up to go into the building (over at the NorthEast corner of the building, by the jungle gym and the teacher's parking lot, which had a single row, enough for oh, about 20 cars at the most, maybe less) that we were in the same stake! That's a church thing.

Some people who might read such isolated and particular memories I have, in which they are a player, may get a little nervous about what else I remember. Well, let me tell you, I remember it all. Especially if it was embarrassing. But nobody cares now. Still, I may not record everything; I have some that were quite devastating to some kids, bless their hearts.

Paul Kingston was my buddy at recess in the second grade. He had a kind of a leadership quality and a purple bike. He was down-to-earth enough to play with me, but despite this, he became our high school student body president. We had one thing in common though: we were both pretty decent distance runners. He did more with it though.

In third grade, we began rotating classes to different teachers somewhat. We had Mrs. Malstrom for home room but spent some time also in Miss Sinegaard's class. She took my huge spider away, which I had scored trick-or-treating. I had obviously brought it to scare Sydnie Cazier in Mrs. Malstrom's class, but was foolish enough to let it out of my pocket while in Miss Sinegaard's. Miss Sinegaard tried to die her hair once, and it turned green. We called her a witch, but looking back, I remember her as a good-natured soul in challenging circumstances.

Alan Sugino sat behind me in her class. He always got his work done early. One time, upon finishing (I think it was math), he brought out a little green piece of paper to draw on. I copied him. I tried to finish early too, and draw. As time went on, I bothered less and less to finish, and just cut to the drawing part early, or even first-thing and whole thing. Alan kept up on his work he was supposed to do, and became an honor student and a Phd. He was Paul's buddy too, and probably still is. The last time I saw either one of them (in 1982), they were together.

In the 9th grade, Alan and I somehow made it to the final championship match as opponents in our weight class, in the intramural school tournament. Usually, in gym, my legs would be purple. One day, my arms were the solid color of grape juice. I remember at one of the after-school wrestling matches, laying behind the scoring table to hide my legs from the girls and spectators. But I digress. I didn't expect Alan to beat me or give me much of a fight, because although I was very quiet, he was quieter. The bigger your mouth, the tougher you are, right? I barely - BARELY beat him. In fact, I suspect he let me have it in the end, just because he was more shy. Let me tell you, he was strong. We didn't know how to wrestle then, so being strong was key. Through it all, I learned who was strong and who had a big mouth, or a bigger intimidation than they could back up.

Speaking of the teacher's parking lot, I remember being over there one day, watching some electric line workers do their job, and learning from the dialogue between they and my big-mouth friends that electricity could get you through a wet stick. There was a wet stick in the puddle there.

Speaking of big-mouth friends (every kid was a big mouth compared to me), I used to stand there while they would bug professionals doing their job, and I would always learn something. One day, we were watching a sign painter paint a sign right in situ down on State Street. He painted straight perfect lines while my friend peppered him with questions. I tried to tell him to shut up and quit bugging the man, but the man just mocked me because I guess he wasn't bothered.