Thanking a Teacher I Don’t Even Remember

I was a first grader when I was given a free road map of the state of Minnesota by the owner of a gas station. He said it was around my age, so he wouldn’t charge me anything for it, even though most of the places were spelled correctly. He added I’d need it now that I’d gone to school in a feeble attempt at becoming a learned man. The map was almost as enlightening as the time I sat on a tomato and discovered where ketchup came from. In an enormous world, that map made everything look within easy reach. I looked at that map often, sharing its mysteries with my parents, and dreaming of visiting exotic places like Nimrod, Embarrass, Ball Club and Nowthen.

I could do that because I’d completed kindergarten.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … well, it really wasn’t long ago or far away. I sat in a comfortable chair and enjoyed reading a book called “All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

The book highlighted things learned in kindergarten (children’s garden): Play fair. Don’t hit people. Be aware of wonder. Flush.

When there was a magical quality to most things, I went to kindergarten, taking the entrance ramp to knowledge enablement, and I did so without carrying an airsickness bag. My class was relatively young, except for one ancient person called a teacher, who did her best to tolerate our presence. Kindergarten didn’t take a big bite out of my life. It was 17 minutes a day, twice a week, for 6 weeks if I weren’t on the injured reserve list due to contracting mumps, chickenpox, measles, flu or a cold. The classroom was a giant petri dish of viruses, and we were a contagious crowd.

I exaggerate. It might have been only 16 minutes per day. Our kindergarten class motto was “Don’t overstay your welcome.”

Kindergarten was so low on the school’s totem pole that we weren’t even on the totem pole.

Kindergarten was a path where we’d transform into something closer to humans. Days of enchantment on our way to enlightenment.

The teacher loved her job despite knowing what we were up to. The golden rule for kindergarten was “treat others as you would want to be treated.” That’s why there were no stocks or pillory awaiting miscreants. She’d probably have loved her job more if my class hadn’t been involved in her life.

I had goals. I was determined to learn how to be a taxidermist and a ventriloquist, and cause the bearded neighbor’s buckhead on a wall to converse with people, and then discover how to grow chinchillas for fun and profit in the neighbor’s beard.

I was there to learn my address, work with clay, tie my own shoes, learn which hand was the right one, know the days of the week, drink from the water fountain without flushing my nostrils, and read a road map. I learned self-defense, which meant being able to say, “I know you are, but what am I?”

I learned that reciting the entire alphabet in a single burp was something best set aside until I was a teenager. I put my fundament in a chair without the constant wiggling as if I had ants in my pants, and I read.

There was a mandatory naptime on a rug, which resulted in creases on faces and drool on rugs. We dreamt of Milk Duds and Turkish Taffy.

I worried needlessly about things until I discovered that none of my classmates possessed the power to turn me into a newt.

Sadly, I don’t remember doing anything in kindergarten, because I don’t remember going to kindergarten. Memories of my first public school experience might be poised at the edge of a fog, but refuse to step forward and identify themselves.

I don’t remember kindergarten – anyhow, anywhere or anywhen.

Did I suffer from crippling ennui? Did I show up to class only long enough to catch the latest disease? Was I part of a mutiny?

I don’t know.

Even though my memory banks contain nothing about kindergarten, I know that thanks to a kindergarten teacher I don’t remember, I read a road map in the first grade.

Thank you.