SCHOOL DAZE

School is starting again this month. I was four years and four months old when I was sent off to attend kindergarten. I had never ventured out into the world alone until this day in September, 19--. I probably followed behind my brother who was four years older and hated girls. He got over that condition later in life.

So my teacher instructed me to sit on my little green chair and then she commenced to give the kids some religious education. I remember reciting the little poem every morning that most of you readers will still remember. It goes:

Thank you for the world you sweet
Thank you for the food we eat
Thank you for the birds that sing
Thank you, God, for everything.

Although I loved the poem it was hard to think of the world as "sweet" when I was made to sit next to little Billy, who smelled bad.
I mean, Billy reeked of something horrible, and not only that, but the teacher was a full-blown alcoholic who ruled the little kids with a wooden ruler in her hand. Once she broke it in half when she hit little Jimmy on his head. You can imagine how hard it was to go back each day to face a person like she was. Later, she was dismissed and replaced by a lovely lady.

Little Billy's mother was reported to the health department, but that really didn't change anything. Years later, Billie went to war, was captured by the enemy, spent many months in a prisoner of war camp, was freed and discharged with back pay, bought a small airplane, crashed it and died.

But to go back to my childhood memory, that little poem we were taught while we sat on the little green chairs made me wonder about this sweet world and so I
asked my mother where I was before I came to this world. She answered," There wasn't any you!"

Wow! I was in the state of shock after hearing that I didn't exist before I came here. I found that hard to believe. I also wondered how I could move around and make noises without being plugged into an outlet in the wall like the vacuum cleaner was in order to do its work. But I was afraid to ask my mother another question for fear of another disheartening explanation.

But I still ask questions and I still wonder. It makes for an interesting life, sometimes.