Unlike many children, I did not go to Kindergarten. At that time, Kindergarten was not part of the public school system. Many Kindergartens were privatized, mostly by churches, who would infuse the education with some Sunday School-type lessons. Mind you, when I was five years old, I didn't really need Kindergarten. I already knew how to read and write. So, before I started the official first grade, I wound up going to Head Start the summer before.
I was not aware it was Head Start. I was just told I was going to school. For about two months during the summer of 1970, I lived with my Grandma Bend in Fort Sumner Monday through Friday. On the weekends, I would be with the rest of my family in Portales, where my parents were pursuing their Master's degrees. My grandmother lived one block from the school.
The first day of school, my aunt Cind decided to take a picture of me going to school. I started walking and waved at the camera. She took the picture and went into the house. I kept walking. Along the way, I wondered if I would be in first grade or third grade. (I was not aware that second was in-between). When I got to the end of the block before crossing the street, I realized that I had no idea where I was supposed to go at the school. I started freaking out and crying and walked back to my grandmother's house. Cind saw me and told me I wasn't supposed to leave yet. She just did that for the picture. They were going to walk me there, but it wasn't time. A few minutes later, my grandmother and Cind walked me to the school and introduced me to my teachers. There were already a lot of kids there on the playground equipment. I felt a lot better.
I learned something very important on my first day of school. I found out that I was NOT supposed to drop my pants to the floor whenever I have to pee. This was something my parents never told me I was doing wrong. I guess they hadn't gone into the bathroom with me in a couple of years. Fortunately, I discovered this by watching the other boys go to the bathroom. Otherwise, I would have looked like a real loser that first day.
The most surprising thing to me my first day was that I discovered that most of the other students did not know how to read. I wondered why that was (especially since I just figured out how to urinate properly). And I should add that I don't remember a lot of effort from the teachers on getting them to learn how to read. I guess they focused on that issue in the first grade.
The days consisted of us playing games and the teachers reading stories to us. We would then act out the stories. Once, the story was "Sleeping Beauty." It was a book version of the Disney movie with pictures from the film. When we acted it out, I got to play the prince. I remembered how the story went chronologically and knew when I was supposed to come and cut through the thorns. But when we got to that part, I was told I wasn't supposed to do that yet. When I looked at the book later, I determined that I was right.
This was also my first experience with school cafeteria food. They almost never had anything that I liked. I often did not eat most of the food. The worst was spinach. It was all wet and slimy. I wasn't going to put that stuff in my mouth. I remember one of the boys knew to pour vinegar on the spinach and eat it that way. I did not think that was going to make it taste any better.
All in all, this version of school was mostly fun. But looking back, it didn't really seem to prepare me for what the first grade was going to offer. Fortunately, I would find out that I didn't need much preparation.
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