Early Memories

I only have three memories from kindergarten.

During naptime at the end of the day, I could never sleep. This cute girl, Sarah, was in the cot in front of me, and she couldn’t sleep either. So, very quietly, we’d pass one of my Hotwheels cars back and forth.

My teacher went obsessive-compulsive one day. The toilet paper didn’t seem to have any perforations, so she went through half of the roll, one “sheet” at a time, before she finally gave up. This also happened during naptime; Sarah and I passed the car to each other and watched Mrs. B. flip out while everyone else slept.

One day, another class had made this mini-volcano thing. They had the whole kindergarten class gather around this two-foot-tall clay mountain rigged with baking soda, vinegar, and some sparklers. When the bubbles started flowing, all I could see in my head was a real volcano in Hawaii wiping out houses, palm trees and…people. I could see people dying, burning to death, melting from the lava. I remember that the sky was a reddish orange haze, and I was so horrified that I started to cry. One of the teachers escorted me from the room, and I just couldn’t stop. My tears were flowing as fast as the “lava.” She asked me what was wrong, but I couldn’t find the words to tell her. I couldn’t make any sense of what I imagined. I still can’t. Can ANYONE explain how a five-year-old kid who knows absolutely NOTHING about the world outside his own backyard imagine such a terrifying image?