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The Early Years
The Early Years
News
January 18, 2022
The Early Years

I guess most people remember the time they spent in kindergarten. Not much was expected of you and there were always lots of cookies. Line up, go this way, go that way and nap time. That’s all you needed to know to get by.

I guess most people remember the time they spent in kindergarten. Not much was expected of you and there were always lots of cookies. Line up, go this way, go that way and nap time. That’s all you needed to know to get by.

When my grandmother broke her leg and could no longer watch me I had to go to kindergarten. My mother knew everybody in Alexandria and had found a nice little kindergarten for me. She would drop me off in the morning then pick me up after work. It was boring but the girls there were real nice and I especially liked the cookies.

One thing about kindergarten, if you start off with twenty four kids in the morning you must have twenty four in the afternoon, no exceptions. One day my mother came to pick me up and they couldn’t find me.

Mrs. Stallings, he was here a few seconds ago but now I can’t find him. I had slipped away by crawling under a fence. It was a very stressful time for everyone except me, until they found me. At the end of the week the director politely suggested another kindergarten that would better suit my needs and I was gone just like that.

The next kindergarten was a Catholic Church and a pretty big operation. My mother knew the priest and was able to get me in there. But the same problems kept cropping up. If you turned your back I was gone and I refused to take a nap. At 11:30 the mats were pulled out and within two minutes every kid was passed out except for me.

The girls talked to me and one even lay down beside me but it didn’t work. I told her that people sleep at night time. She told me that little kids should sleep day and night and pointed to the other children asleep on the floor. I told her I didn’t know what was wrong with these kids.

As kindergarten workers, nap time is your only break and I was making things difficult. I was upsetting the natural flow of things so the old Priest paid me a visit. He took me by the hand, walked me through the church up to the altar and waved his hands while uttering some spiritual words of wisdom. By the time he was through speaking, I was gone.

It was a really big church with lots of places to hide. Once again there was a frantic search to find me that involved just about everyone and that was the beginning of the end for me. I remember the Priest talking to my mother right in front of me, “Frances, I’m so sorry, we just don’t have the facilities to take care of little Joe” and even suggested another kindergarten that would be better suited to my needs. That was the same thing the last school said!

We tried one more kindergarten and that didn’t work out either. Strike three and my parents were really getting worried. Never one to give up on her children, my mother kept looking and came up with a new kindergarten.

It was actually called the Rehabilitation Center and it was right down the road from our house. She brought me in to meet Mr. Long, a small bespectacled man with the patience of a saint. He was an early childhood development expert but I didn’t know that. He got down on one knee and said at eye level “my name is Mr. Long, what is your name” so I told him.

He had every toy known to man in 1961 and asked me what I wanted to play with. My eyes panned around the room until I saw a plastic baseball bat and three plastic balls. “I wanna play baseball” so we played baseball.

Mr. Long was a child psychologist and always spoke quietly and calmly, all the while watching my reaction to everything he said and did. He even had a paper to take notes. For the next two months it was going to be just me and him.

All of a sudden I loved kindergarten and looked forward to it every day. He put me through a battery of tests and graded me every day. Emotional, psychological, developmental and problem solving tests were done. He even wrestled with me to test me for aggression all the while making a game of everything we did.

Finally there was some good news for my poor mother. There’s nothing wrong with him, he is just “hyperactive”, a word often heard today but was seldom used back then. The two months I spent with Mr. Long calmed me down and prepared me for the first grade. I’ll never forget Mr. Long and the difference he made in my young life. He taught me one thing that I remember to this day. Never give up on a kid. One more thing. Always be careful what you say in front of a six year old. They understand more than you think.

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