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Kinder-Garden
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Kinder-Garden |
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dwgpoet Member
since 2007-03-05
Posts 122FL, USA |
Now, Adam’s first day was on a Monday January 20, 1970. He was flying down the street in his father’s ‘65 two-door Mustang on the way to “Kinder-garden.” The oldest of his four sisters, Sharon, was in the front seat beside his father. She had her fingers squeezed out of the top of the window trying to catch the morning breeze. Adam’s second oldest sister, Yvonne, sat beside him in the back. Adam mimicked her posture of hands shoved inside of the down coat pockets reaching down to be warmed by his thighs. He daydreamed about all of the imaginary animals that he was ripping out of the carpet, as his feet pulled pieces of carpet back to reveal the cages of the Mustang’s floorboards. Daddy, were too cold back here. Sharon has the window cracked, Adam wanted to say, but he knew that if he complained while his father was driving, the smack of his father’s hand would extend upon him from that front seat. “Daddy, the sign says ‘No Passing!’ Daddy, why do you keep passing the ‘No Passing’ signs?” “Shut up kid. I told you, no playing games back there while I’m driving.” “But Daddy,” Adam quickly caught himself and shut up, as he would many times two years. And, Adam never received an answer until months later when he had figured it out for himself, after reading the Driver's License manual. No passing, don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t change the channel. No you can’t. All of these rules against my growing up educated, thought Adam. “O. K. students these are the eleven fishing poles you will use after lunch,” Miss Fossy said to Adam and his ten other kindergarten contemporaries. “Pick one out of the swimming pool and put it on the floor in front of you.” The children were in the biggest class out of the four that Silver Springs had in its yellow painted brick building. Miss Fossy had seated them on the floor in a circle that was about 113 feet around its outside. This left ten feet in between each student from the other one. No fighting, touching, or even talking was allowed. Between them all in the center of their circle, was a six-foot wide by six inches high baby blue plastic swimming pool with a heap of wooden pool cue looking sticks in it. The children reached over the pink and white flowered and limply folded edge of the pool. They each grabbed themselves one of the identically crafted, toy wooden fishing rods. They each obediently set it down on the floor in front of themselves without examining the rods. “Here is yours Adam. Don’t move. Just sit there.” Having been warned about his severe hyperactivity, Miss Fossy was kneeling right beside him. “These are the tuna fish that you will be catching,” she said as she proudly showed them a one inch wide black magnet. It had a half of a darker shiny black-hooked smile on each side of its flat head. A darker shiny black pin-bubble above the fake smile served as an eyeball. A trio of wavy glossy black lines were indented into each its tail. “These are magnets. Who knows how a magnet works?” she asked. Nobody had his or her hands raised except Adam. But he was only seeing the back of the teacher’s head. And then from a box in her left hand, she scattered about fifty fish magnets around the inside of the empty drooping pool. “You see this fishing pole,” she said. “Here it contains on the end of this yellow yarn, a magnet. This lure when you lower it down into the pool will attract and stick to one of these fish.” She lowered down Adam’s wooden make-believe fishing rod, so that the magnet on the end of the yarn touched and picked up one of the fish in the pool closest to her. “See, it works. I’ll give you all ten minutes to fish after lunch, and I’ll see which one of you students can be the best fisher, and catch the most fish. And I don’t want to hear any of you talking about girls not being able to fish during lunch. No fighting!” She turned and looked at Adam. “And no talking about what girls can and can not do. “WOMEN, UNITE! SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL!” she said, copying the previous year’s slogan of the demonstrators who had protested against the Miss America Beauty Pageant in that 1969 Atlantic City event. “Now remember, no fighting, and no talking during lunch.” She still looked at Adam. “Any one that I catch is not going to be allowed to fish.” Putting down the rod in front of Adam, she stood up. “Stay,” she said as she walked over to the left side of the room, and stood in between the twenty-eight desks that were facing opposite the students toward the room’s left outer wall. “Okay, very slowly, stand up straight children. Now starting with Sheila come fill your seats again from the left front of the room.” Miss Fossy was a tall skinny young woman with short-cropped brunette hair. She wore a mini-skirt that was showing her white bony knees. They shined with what looked like Vaseline as she inspected each student that passed in between her and the rows of desks. Sheila, the girl to Adam’s left, marched proudly by the teacher to take the first front row seat. She was tall for a kindergarten student, about three and a half feet tall. She had long reddish brown hair that was neatly brushed in an even bell around her head and shoulders. Her white skin glimmered over her cheeks and on the tip of her nose. But her eyebrows were dark blackish-brown and gave her eyes the look of a bloodhound. Adam, the only black student in the class, was allowed to walk to his seat last. This placed him seated in the back far right of the class, with his back closest to the swimming pool. This was the first little mistake that the teacher would make that year. “Okay class, we are going to eat some home made ham sandwiches and watch the noon news on TV before we go fishing,” Miss Fossy said. She rolled out a small black-and-white television on a chest high cart from behind the coatroom. All of the class students turned to the front left as she flicked it on. “We now return you to a recap of the presidents inaugural address, given at 10:15 AM, this morning,” the newscaster said from the TV screen. This was a momentous occasion on this January 20, 1970. “My fellow Americans,” Richard Milhous Nixon began as he announced his first planned public events for his new office as the U.S. President. He fabricated many utterances about “justice.” Adam was annoyed by that ugly man, who did not look trustworthy. He looked like a devisor of a Neo-dictatorship’s kind of justice. Adam decided to soon boldly create his own kind of American justice. The teacher passed out ham sandwiches to all of the students except to Harry Goldberg. Harry was given a kosher beef baloney sandwich as his parents had instructed. “Now, you kids eat up all of your food, and then after the lunch, we can go fishing.” While everyone’s eyes, including Miss Fossy’s were glued to the television, Adam snuck out of his seat. With a mouthful of ham that tasted more like gooey mayonnaise, Adam crept back behind the last two rows of empty desks, back a few feet to grab a hold of Sheila’s fishing rod. He looked at the magnet at the end of the yellow yarn. It was anchored inside of a red plastic holder that allowed only one flat side of the hockey puck shaped magnet to be seen. Adam squeezed the plastic holder with his left hand and pried the magnet out of the plastic with the fingernail of his right hand. He caught the magnet up into his right fingers after it had rolled a few inches on the floor. He looked up to see if the class had heard the tiny ping noise that the magnet had made when it had hit the floor. All eyes were still attached to the TV screen. All of their cheeks were still bulging with the dead pig or the dead fattened cow guts. Adam placed the magnet against one of the fish in the pool. It would not stick to the fish. He looked at the side that would not stick; its surface was a more rough looking black than the other shiny side of it. He snapped the magnet back into the plastic with the rough side facing out. Quickly, Adam went to his right around the circle flipping each student’s magnets around so that their shiny black surface no longer showed. With each magnet in hand, Adam would look up to survey the students’ and the teacher’s eyes. Ten students showed only the backs of their heads. And the one teacher revealed eyes that were half facing the left side of the class, but were really only seeing the stars and stripes of ceremony on the TV. When Adam had completed the circle, changing the magnets in all of the poles up until his own, he then quietly crept back to his seat to fill his mouth with another bite of mayonnaise and ham. He always hated mayonnaise after that day. “Okay class, have you all finished your sandwiches?” Mrs. Fossy asked. She stepped from behind her desk and switched off the Coca-Cola commercial. The news had ended and a soap opera was about to come on. “One day Patricia Nixon or some other notable woman will become our first woman president of the United States. You see children, you can be, in America, any thing you want to be in life. Children what do you want to become when you grow up?” she asked. All hands rose, and a few spoiled children shouted out. “One at a time, we’ll start with Sheila and work our way from the front to the back.” “I want to be a house wife and have one hundred kids.” “That’s nice, Sheila. I guess some one has to have the children. But women can do any job that men can do. I expect some of my women here to reach for the stars. We have six girls and only five boys in this class, so the girls will rule this government.” A few of the girls in the class did copy the teacher and say that they wanted to become the United States President, and a few wanted to own a big business like McDonalds or Coco Cola. One girl said that she didn’t want to leave home, but she wanted to be a mechanic at her father’s gas station. Harry Goldberg said that he was going to be an astronaut. The teacher laughed at that one. “Russia launched the first satellite, the Sputnik in 1957, but we are beating them to the moon,” Miss Fossy said. Finally it was Adam’s turn to speak. He spoke loud and with conviction to the class. “I’m going to be President of the United States,” Adam said. Miss Fossy’s laugh was unbelievably loud. “What’s so funny,” Adam said as he spit some mayonnaise out onto a napkin. “Well nothing, Adam. It’s just that, we’ll never let YOU become President. You should try some other trade or profession,” she said. “Why not? Why can’t I become President?” Adam asked. “Well it’s because they’ll never let you. You see, it’s because you’re colored, a Negro,” she said. Adam looked at his skin and remembered again that he was different than the other kids in class. But, he still did not yet understand the fact that people with his colored skin had less rights in America than people who were considered white. Adam kept quiet and swallowed his last ham chunk. The students were then allowed to wash their hands in the sink that was in the bathroom to the far right front of the class. The teacher watched them as they washed one at a time, and then returned to their seats for the next student. “Can I shut the door? I’ve got to use the bathroom,” Adam said when it was his turn. “Not right now, Adam. Starting with Sheila, let’s line up and sit around the pool to get ready to start fishing. Come on Adam. Find your seat at the desk until it’s your turn beside the pool,” Miss Fossy said. Adam found his seat at the desk and waited for all the other kids to line up. Afterwards, Adam himself sat down in his place beside his wooden toy fishing pole. “All right kids, no fighting. Let’s quietly see who can catch most fish. Go ahead. You may now pick up your rods and start,” Miss Fossy said. Adam picked up his rod. He slowly searched the faces from student to student, as if he were waiting to learn how to fish from them. All of them kept lowering their magnets on top of the black fish in the pool. But none of the fish would stick to their magnets. In fact, when they left their magnets on top of the fish too long the fish seemed like they swam away from all of the children’s magnets. Adam laughed , and then he went to work. He stuck his magnet onto one black fish. He lifted it out of the pool and dropped it into his lap. He repeated the process several times. Every time that he would get about a half a dozen or more fish in his lap, he would look around at the other kids and laugh. He had over a dozen, before the first student caught on. “Hey, Adam’s the only one who’s fishing stick works,” said Harry Goldberg. “Teacher, our sticks are broken,” said a boy named Dave Parker. “Maybe you two are using the wrong kind of bait,” Adam said laughing. He sped up his fish catching, expecting that the teacher would now leave her desk and come answer his classmates’ loud whining. “What seems to be the problem here kids? Didn’t I show you all how to use these magnetic rods before we ate lunch?” asked Miss Fossy. She stood there and watched them struggle with their rods. Adam lifted one after another, putting three more black fish into his lap before Miss Fossy snatched his wooden stick from him. “How come your pole seems to be the only one working Adam?” she asked. “Maybe I’m the only one smart enough to be President of the United States.” “You’ve switched the other children’s magnets, so that they all repel the fish, uh Adam,” she said. “No, they don’t know how to fish. They don’t know how to use black bait,” Adam said as he broke out into a triangle of loud prolonged laughter. Miss Fossy grabbed the top of his shirt, so that all of the gleaming black fish eyes spilt out onto the floor. “Get up,” she said. “Go stand in the corner in front of the lavatory. You know your father said that if you act up on me, I could beat you as hard as I want with the paddle.” He turned around and stomped down the aisle in between the four rows of desks. Stopping in front of the bathroom door, he reached out and knocked loudly, five times on the wooden door. Quickly he looked over his right shoulder. “Teacher, I’ve got to use the toilet. I told you before.” “You just stand there a while until I finish fixing all the poles. You should have thought of that when you were rearranging them.” Adam rocked from foot to foot, laughing for the next ten minutes or so. But he was trying not to laugh to loud because he did not know how funny Miss Fossy’s paddle might feel. By the mild manner of his father during their ride home, Adam felt that Miss Fossy must not have told him about her lack of supervision during their class that day. “What are you back there laughing about Adam,” asked his father, Roxas Sr. Adam shoved his cold hands deeper into his pockets and tried to muffle his laughter as they traveled the next six miles heading back to his Kinsfork prison home. copyright dwgpoet 2007 [This message has been edited by dwgpoet (04-28-2007 06:03 PM).] |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines |
Well written and much enjoyed...not sure I have much more to say since I remember those times ( as I think how smart Adam was for his age)  M |
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dwgpoet Member
since 2007-03-05
Posts 122FL, USA |
This is the first in a series of Adam's childhood semi-auto bio memoirs. Thank You, M |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines |
you are quite welcome...and your words kept my attention throughout I will be looking forward to the next installment.(p.s. I am in Early Childhood Education) M |
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