First Grade

               I was six years old. We were all sitting in chairs in a semi-circle in front of Miss Lapiz our first grade teacher at Harper School. She was reading to us some story and I don't have any idea now what it was. This was a ritual. We had our reading groups in the morning and in the afternoon we had our “listening” session where Miss Lapiz read to us. This was a fundamental change from kindergarten in the suburban American educational system, however. First off, kindergarten was totally about free association. It was controlled chaos. It was finger painting and Orff instruments. It was not about reading or writing or arithmetic.
              But first grade? That was the big time. For one thing we had desks. We had our own property. Bill Cosby put some of this in perspective in one of his routines recorded on vinyl in the 60s. (I'm sure it's available online). We had the paper with the dotted lines that enabled us to keep our printed letters straight, and he was right. There really were pieces of wood still floating in the paper.
One afternoon in the semi-circle I was day-dreaming as normal and the girl next to me leaned over and whispered something in my ear. I didn't quite catch it. I said. “What?” She said, “I love you.” I was flabbergasted. She was beautiful. It was also true that I had never seen it coming. I had never looked at her as an object of desire before then, and now, at six years old, I desired her completely. She had short dark hair. She was wearing a light blue and white dress. She was stunning to me at that moment, and I was absolutely clueless. I was embarrassed. I blushed. I can feel it now...and I said nothing.
             It haunts me to this day that I said nothing. The next year in second grade, Robin leaned over at her desk and said to me, “You know... I like Jimmy now this much better than you.” She held out both of her hands about a half a foot apart. That much better? I was even more stunned. Not only had I done nothing about her profound demonstration of love in first grade, I was caught completely flat-footed by my demotion in second. I think that is when I gave up.