Kindergarten Incidents
part 1

Jason and the Bathroom

Jason Fox was one of those boys that has been rotten and conniving since day one.  He was the kid that monitored people walking up and down the halls.  It was easy enough for him.  He was usually standing out there, nose to the wall.  This was his punishment on many, many occasions.

One of my first interactions with him was when he said that he wanted to go to the bathroom but that he was scared.  He wanted me to go with him.  I told him ‘No!’ Boys and girls weren’t supposed to go to the bathroom together!  But then he promised that he wouldn’t watch me if  I wouldn’t watch him.

So I went.  When he peed I turned clamped my hands on my eyes so tightly I’m surprised I didn’t give myself a hickey.  Of course the little bastard watched me.  I caught him peeking.

The Naked Woman Drawing

Jason asked me if I had even seen a naked woman before.  I said that once I had accidentally seen Iris getting out of the bath tub.  He asked me to draw her.  I told him no … what a pervert!

Then the little jerk pulled out the blackmail.  He would tell the teacher that I went in the bathroom with him if I didn’t draw it.  So, I did.  I drew it really bad, though, so he would stop bothering me.

The Handcuffs

Jason and another boy, Luke, chased me on the playground all the time.  Thank God I could run fast back then.  They were relentless.  They started ganging up on me.  One would chase me up the slide and the other would be at the bottom waiting for me.  I stalled at the top as long as possible, but had to slide down.  I punched Luke a few times when he was at the bottom.  He was a little wuss.  He would skimper off crying and I could run away from Jason without his interference.

Luke’s dad was a security officer or something.  At any rate he got hold of a pair of handcuffs.  He brought them to school and he and Jason continued to chase me in their daily routine.  I tripped over a tree root and they drug me off to a pine tree in the corner of the play yard.  Luke handcuffed me with my hands behind the tree.  He put his face right up in mine and told me that I was his prisoner until I kissed Jason.

I screamed Ms. Walker’s name so loud that Luke stumbled backwards.  He was deaf for a few minutes.  Jason ran off.  Ms. Walker finally came over, Luke got into serious trouble and I was so mad I couldn’t see straight.

Mrs. Brady, the Art Teacher
This was covered in a previous blog.  I’ll repost it here, though.

In kindergarten, things seem so scary but so wonderful. One of my favorite parts of class was art time. I wasn’t an ‘eat paste’ kind of kid. I liked the colors. I loved that there were so many colors and that I could use all of them for whatever I wanted.

I remember especially one day that we all enjoying art time. It was during the fall and our art teacher, Mrs. Brady, had us all draw a tree. We were going to paint it with and then use little leaf shaped sponges for our foliage. I had a layer of browns and reds and oranges covering my tree, like the other kids, but I wanted to make purple. Some trees have leaves that turn a purple-ish color and I wanted to show that in my painting.

When I started to squirt out some the purple paint, one of the kindergarten teachers, Mrs. Walker, came over and spanked me for ‘wasting’ paint. She said, “There aren’t purple leaves. Use the colors you have.”

I was so upset. I was confused as to why I was being punished for using my imagination. This didn’t make sense. I put down my sponge and started to cry.

Mrs. Brady saw me and came over to see what was wrong. I told her about being popped for using another color of paint. She looked upset and told me to go back over to the table and use whatever color of paint I wanted to. She said, “The leaves on your tree are whatever color you want them to be. No one can decide that but you.”

That was almost twenty years ago. Since then, I’ve had many colors in many paintings, but whenever I paint a tree, there’s a little purple leaf on it. It’s for Mrs. Brady.