| THOUGHT OF STARTING KINDERGARTEN in the fall messed up my whole summer. The ocean water at the beach didn't taste salty, I couldn't hear the ocean in the big shells I found, and the sand felt like shards of glass beneath my feet. Even frosty glasses of red KOOL-AID with lots of sugar and plenty of ice tasted dull and unrefreshing. God had granted me a one-year deferment since my birthday was in March. Those who would turn the fateful age of five after the arbitrary cut-off date would be spared the kindergarten experience until the following year. The following year folded into the present. The time for kindergarten was now. Freda Bolds was in the second grade when Istarted kindergarten. She was an elementary school veteran, even though this would be her first year at P.S 61 as well. She had gone to the old P.S. 71 for kindergarten and first grade. She and I were among the handful of kids who lived in the Jacob Riis Housing Projects who would have to suffer P.S. 61 until our new neighborhood school was finished being built. 1954 was my first year of school and the year of Brown versus the Board of Education that was to end school desegregation. It was more than a little ironic that I would be crossing the color line at P.S. 61 on the Lower East Side of New York City where the kids who lived in exclusively White Stuyvesant Town went to school. They had been contemptuous or the poor White kids who lived in the tenements that surrounded the school -- that is until the Black invasion of about five Black kids from the projects reminded the rich and poor White kids that despite their differences they belonged to the best club of all which was the White club. The poor White kids must surely have been confused by their instant popularity. The five Black kids who walked through the door of P.S. 61 on September 6, 1954 were sent off to different classrooms, divided like slaves on a slave ship to reduce the probability of insurrection. Freda walked to school with me on that first day as she would for the entire time that we went to P.S. 61. She helped me find my classroom then set out to find out where she was supposed to be. "Look for me in the cafeteria at lunch time," her words floated over her left shoulder as she almost blended into the sea of White kids who moved down the corridor like a wave. Freda was so cool. She had never set foot in that school before either, but she walked around like she owned the place. It would take years for me to develop that walk. I stood at the doorway of my classroom staring at the 20 or so White kids who were already seated in little wooden chairs arranged in a circle. The bell hadn't rung yet, but there they were. A severe looking woman with stiff blond hair and a complexion the color and consistency of pastry flour circled the children. She talked to them in kind, soft tones. I could not hear what she was saying. She paused in mid-sentence, as though I was interrupting her with my presence, and shot a look in my direction that hit me in between my eyes like a cold dart. Her eyes looked like pale blue diamonds. I shivered. I sat in one of the two empty chairs in the circle trying to not draw attention to myself but I stood out like a lump of coal in a snow bank. All heads turned in my direction and I was met with the collective gaze of 20 sets of eyes, also pale and icy. When I settled in my seat, the circle expanded and kids on either side of me slid as far away as they possibly could. The teacher kept talking and I still couldn't hear what she was saying. Her words sounded muffled as though I was under water. She did not welcome me to the class as she did the other kids. She did not ask me my name. She did not even look at me after her first piercing and disapproving glance. As if responding to some secret cue, all the kids stood up and moved their chairs to three rectangular tables located at the back of the room. I carried my chair too, but there was no space for me at any of the tables when I got there, and no one tried to make room for me. I sat off to the side -- frozen in my chair wishing that I could disappear. I didn't think that anyone would notice if I did. Sand box play was the next activity. My "classmates" stood scrunched up shoulder to shoulder around one of the two sandboxes. I had the other one entirely to myself. They built sand castles and laughed and played together under the adoring eyes of the teacher who heaped lavish praise on their creations. My thoughts drifted to the warm sands of the Long Island beaches that I visited with my mother and grandmother every summer, the smell of salt air, the taste of fried chicken, and the feel of the sun gently baking my wet body. I had to think back a couple of summers. The summer just passed was robbed of these comforting thoughts by the premonition of what I was experiencing now. I shivered again like I had just opened the huge door to a meat locker, and turned to realize that the frigid eyes of the teacher with no name were aimed at my forehead. Throughout that entire torturous year she never looked me in the eye. She glared, instead, at my forehead when circumstances forced her to acknowledge my existence at all. The only time she appeared to warm to me a little was during music time. "It's music time class," she would say with mock gaiety while fidgeting with the old record player that sat on a table next to a stack of kids' 78-rpm records. She taught us -- ;the rest of the class anyway -- simple square dance steps to dance along with Burl Ives songs like Jimmy Crack Corn. The problem for me was that you needed a partner to do these dances and the girls in the class acted like they couldn't see me. They would try to walk right through me while scrambling for the few remaining boys. The boys in the class tripped over themselves trying to get to little Patty, the prettiest girl in class. She had golden hair worn in Shirley Temple curls, and skin the color of cream that strawberries had sat in for a long time. Music time was the worst part of those wretched days. I was always left alone to watch the other kids dance and laugh while I stood dumbly at the side of the teacher who kept time to the music by waving a wooden ruler through the air. I tried to stand next to her because there was no one else to anchor myself to in the room. I felt that standing close to her might legitimize my existence, but she moved every time she realized that I was standing near her. This was my pathetic way of participating in the dance. Cold winds blew through my heart several times that day and every day in that horrible class. I felt physically sick much of the time, the result of the cold draft I was subjected to daily as I left the warmth of my parents' apartment -- where I was the center of the universe -- and entered the frigid hell of non-existence. Music time only got worse as I was dragged into performing a particular dance solely for the purpose of being made fun of. Bend Down, Turn Around, Pick a Bale o' Cotton was always the last song of the morning and it did not require a partner to dance to. "We" just had to do what the words said: "Bend down, turn around, pick a bale o' cotton; bend down, turn around, pick a bale o' hay." When we came to the words: "Oh Lordy, pick a bale o' cotton, oh Lordy, pick a bail o' hay," we were instructed to pretend to lift bales of cotton and hay and then wave our hands in the air and turn around while rolling our eyes at the ceiling. I felt, somewhere deep in my guts, that this song had something to do with me. I had seen Steppin Fetchit on television and I felt the same sickness in my stomach doing the dance as when I watched him rolling his eyeballs and talking like he had a mouth full of fish on T.V. I guess I was supposed to think that the other kids were laughing with me. The only problem was that I wasn't laughing. Still, I tried to dance through all my pain and embarrassment. I thought that if I did it really well, the teacher might actually smile at me. Maybe she would touch my shoulder every once in a while or tell me that my painting was beautiful, or have the rest of the class come over to admire the sand castle I had built using all the sand in the sand box that I had all to myself. Maybe one of the other kids would build a sand castle with me. None of these things ever happened. When the song was over, I found myself in the middle of a circle of White, laughing faces. I'd slowly lower my up-stretched hand. Miss what's her name would hold her left side with both hands as if to push back the cruel laughter that threatened to split her in half. For the first time in my young life I felt baby seeds of hate trying to sprout roots in my stomach. |
| Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes Thinking back on kindergarten: The memory still burns Part 1 of 2 |
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