I barely remember being in daycare, which of course was before kindergarten. I want to say it was a two-story white building. The main lady there was named Mrs. Steele. I remember feeling awkward on water fun day when they had all the boys in one line and all the girls in the line beside us changing our clothes. I couldn’t have been more than three or four and was very self-aware at that time that this is weird. That would’ve been around 1982 or 1983.
I attended elementary school at Black Rock Elementary in Black Rock Arkansas. At the time I started kindergarten in 1983 the elementary school was a set of three buildings with stone fronts and a sidewalk connecting them all on the right hand side. The left-hand side was the main road. The playground for K through three was at the top of the hill behind the third building. There was a red fire hydrant in the far corner of the playground. I used to pretend that it was the Tardis console.
For kindergarten, my teacher was named Ann Phillips. I only have very faint memories of kindergarten, but I do remember my mom brought my K9 from Doctor Who that dad built me for show and tell one day. I remember one day laying on a kinder mat on the floor and just looking up staring at this wooden shoe that was used to help us learn to tie shoes. I struggled with tying shoes for a very long time and more Velcro shoes as a result.
I really don’t remember much of first grade. That would’ve been the 1984 – 1985 school year. My teacher was Mrs. Mary House. We had a teaching assistant named Mrs. Lynne Beary. I want to say that the class got split in two and each teacher took half of us to each end of the room. I want to say that there was a large curved table in the back corner of the classroom. We had reading textbooks that they were very thin paperbacks, I want to say, had red on the cover.
