I Remember Part Deux

I remember...writing the first essay for this class and wondering if the witty, self-conscious tone would instead come across as precocious.

I remember...writing that essay, and being amazed at the fact that I had never told my parents about any of the events I was writing about.

I remember...thinking, with quiet desperation, if there is any value to my essay, my major, my future profession as a journalist.

I remember...being naturally ambidextrous as a kindergartner. I would write with my dominant left hand, and upon that hand losing vigor, would switch to my right hand.

I remember...my kindergarten teacher forcing me to write with one hand. "Which hand do you write with?" she asked, her tone accusatory. "I write with both!" I exclaimed, plucky like my childhood hero, Thomas the Tank Engine. "No!" she exclaimed. "You must choose!" I chose left. That explains a lot.

I remember...having a growing hatred for the phrase "a lot" starting my sophomore year in college.

I remember...that same kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Lion, and her odd, angular walking style, the result of a damaged leg from childhood polio.

I remember...my mother attending the first Parent/Teacher night for Mrs. Lion, an event where Lion demonstrated her "clapping" strategy to control the students—she would violently clap her hands, and the students stopped, instantaneously, in their spots. Lion beamed. My mom was horrified. Visions of totalitarian fascist sugar plums danced in her head.

I remember...loving my first grade teacher, Mrs. Berna, and as a fifth grader, taking part in a video we sent to her to commemorate her retirement. I began the video with, "Hi Mrs. Berna, I'm not sure if you remember me, but..." All the other students taking part mimicked this memory theme in their own addresses to the camera.

I remember...my utter obsession with Godzilla and dinosaurs as a second grader. My interest was so keen that at the first Parent/Teacher conference of that grade, the teacher, Mrs. Cain (who was a doll), specifically requested my mom to "tell Peter to write about something other than dinosaurs."

I remember...drawing a huge, four-foot-tall picture of Godzilla and giving it to Mrs. Cain as a present on the last day of school. Whenever I would meet students of Mrs. Cain's the following years as grade school student, they would always connect my name with the huge monster drawing proudly on display in the classroom.

I remember...the perfection that was the sixth grade. The inconsistent nature of the U.S. education system accomplishes, if anything, strong connections to great teachers, and my sixth grade teacher, Ms. Flaherty, was an academic dynamo. We had entire units devoted to Egypt, various Asian countries, medieval times (during which we constructed an entire castle from cardboard, labeling each individual section of the castle), astrophysics (we built rockets from two-liter pop bottles and launched them with compressed hair; the bottles housed eggs (our passengers)), and even a segment on acting where we wrote and acted our own one-scene plays. If only all levels of learning could be this riveting...

I would remember to send Dave the URL to my blog, except I already did so!