c…a…t…

d…o…g…

m…o…m…

d…a…d…

These are some of the first words I read. My mom wrote them down for me. Sometimes there was a long pause between letters because there was a green light. c…a……greenlight……………………….

Red light. Time to learn. t. “Cat!”. “Good, David.” d….o….. green light……. “g? dog?” “Yes, David, very good…you did it yourself! Now I have to merge….go back to your seat” “Mom? Is that a d or a b? It’s melting…” “Yes, that’s condensation on the windshield…”

My mom, the preschool teacher and bus driver, multi-tasking on the way to Vernon Oaks Country Day Care- writing letters on the windshield. I went there for three years, learning phonics (“AE, I O U a kiss”) and to introduce myself to bigger kids with a punch.

I unlearned the punching at some point; perhaps prayer and new cowboy outfit incentives helped.

My earliest memory was when I was three, in the kitchen on Tamarind Drive, staring at a light switch and saying to myself, “I’m three.” I was three when I rode the bus with my mom to preschool, reading my first words in the condensation on the windshield.

So I guess I cannot remember a time when my mom wasn’t teaching kids to read.

I have always loved words.

For a while, the lure of outdoor ball games trumped reading for me, but I came back to it, and I remain entranced by words. Some of the letters in my mind may still have ghostly memories of condensation trails chasing each other down the windshield.

I learned a lot about life in preschool.

Letters, words, punching, obeying, and not. ..spanking. I remember sitting in my cubby and thinking, I’m the only one around here getting spanked…. Nobody else’s mom was the teacher…

Maybe I caught the acting bug there. Did we do “The Three Little Pigs”, mom?

I don’t remember that, but I remember being inventive when trying to get out of painting during “easel time”. “What’s that, David?” An aide would ask of my mishmash of hastily brushed colors. “Um, a tornado?” I would offer. “You did a tornado yesterday.” “Um, a hurricane. Can I go play ball now?”

When I was 5, I set off for Kindergarten, and I rode the bus with my neighbor and true love, Julie Ransom.

Ask me one day about the tadpoles…but that’s another story…

In second grade, art bit me again when the 1970’s psychobabble reached into my classroom to wonder at my psyche when I hastily drew a “person”- a blob with two sticks, so I could go out and play ball now. The concerned teachers called my mom to ask about a possible lack of love in our home, whereupon my mom laughed and pulled out her “breast-feeder forever” membership card and explained my disinterest in drawing….

For much of my mom’s career, I lived far away, only visiting now and again to demonstrate soccer skills or read a story to the kids. But I heard the stories. Stories about gardening, cooking soup, making peanut butter, doing silhouettes and hand prints (still?), putting on The Play, and singing, always singing….

“You’re still doing all of that, mom, with the larger classes, fewer aides, over the top reading requirements and the onerous testing, testing, and more testing?”

Here’s a word for you: s…t…u….b…b….o….r….n…..

And another: c….a….r….i….n….g….

And: l….o….v….i….n….g….

and o yeah: w…o….r….k….a….h….o….l….i….c….

So mom what will you do now without your fix? What will you do daily from six to six?

What will all those kids do? Will the right half of their brains shrink or fail to connect the synapses we all need them to have in a left-brain culture?

Oh, sure, I hope the powers that be clean up your room and move forward- a few of your projects may be better left undone… or uncooked (meatsa pizza). But please, please, save her spirit of invention and discovery, of engaging every part of a child, enlivening every sense, coaxing every note.

Read, yes, but paint too, and play ball.

Test, yes, but get dirt under your nails, and huff and puff and blow the house down.

Meet goals, yes, but don’t forget to SING!

Sing while you cook, and while you read, and while you play;

Sing while you learn- greet each part of every day

With a song and a guitar.

Today is Monday, today is Monday, Monday school, Monday school, all you happy children, today is Monday….

I love you, Mom, and I am so proud of you. If they ever make a statue of you, you will be sitting with your guitar in a semi-circle of rapt children. What did they see in you? What word were you teaching them?

Some of us know. Some of us know the Word that starts all words. I think you help kids know who they are because you know who you are and to whom you belong.

G….o…..d.