Sunday, May 24, 2020

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Share a Childhood Memory


Randy Seaver's "Genea-Musings" mission for us this week is:

Your Mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to:

Have you written your memoirs yet? If so, please share with us one story from your childhood. If not, then start your memoirs! The story could be a memory of your family life, your schoolwork, your neighborhood, etc. It doesn't have to be a certain length-- just something you recall.

Here's my story:

Kindergarten 1960
 
As an only child, I stayed at home with my mother all day, every day.  Daddy went to work, the neighbor children went to school, but I had to stay at home.  When I was only four, my mother decided I was ready for kindergarten.  Or maybe she just wanted to get me out from underfoot!   

In 1960, there was no public kindergarten in North Carolina.  My mother figured that if I had to drop out or repeat the class in private school, it wouldn’t be on my permanent record.  I was born in late October, so I had just missed the cut-off.  I wasn’t that much younger than some of the other children.

So in the fall of 1960, I started kindergarten at First Presbyterian Church School in Winston-Salem.  I loved every single thing about kindergarten!

I loved going somewhere every day.
I loved being around other children, who wanted to play and be silly like I did.
I loved singing songs and listening to stories.
I loved playing outside and racing around.
I loved learning colors and letters and numbers.

For nap time, we had to bring a bath towel from home and lay on it on the floor.  We didn’t have to go to sleep, but we had to lie down and be quiet.  I distinctly remember lying there thinking what fun I was having at kindergarten!

The only problem was that I was very envious of another little girl’s hair.  I had short blond wavy hair.  She had very long, smooth, dark brown hair.  And she sometimes wore it plaited into two pigtails.  I was so envious, my little 5-year-old self couldn’t stand it!  So one day, I dipped her pigtails in paint.  She swung her head, the pigtails went flying, and so did the paint!

Despite that incident, the next year, I started first grade.  School was not nearly as much fun.  It was work!
I'm seated in the front row, 5th from left. The girl with the pigtails is 2 seats to my right.