1976a - Lonely Boy

by Andrew Gold

His Mother and Father said, "What a lovely boy,
We'll teach him just what we learned,
Ah, yes just what we learned.
We'll dress him up warmly and we'll send him to school.
We'll teach him how to fight and be nodoby's fool.

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My first kiss was in Kindergarten. There were twin sisters, Karen and Stacey Jewell. Karen was a scrawny black-haired girl and Stacy had strawberry-blonde hair with blue eyes. I don't remember whom I kissed first, but I do remember hiding inside pretend kitchen cabinets in Miss Luber's Kindergarten class with both them. I remember trading kisses and trying to figure out why I was doing just that.

For a five-year-old, none of the parts work together. It's like an old used Tinker toy set, with broken ends and half-gnawed spindles and missing pieces. Kissing a girl at five-years-old is like kissing the back of your hand now. It just doesn't feel right.

During indoor recess, our kindergarten class played with over-sized plastic Tinkertoys, wooden blocks, crayons and colored chalk. We also brought our Barbie sets and our GI Joe's with the Kung-Fu grip, pretending we were the things we would sooner or later turn out to be.

We all wore some sort of nylon blend. The girls wore little nylon dresses, often with sunflower or daffodil prints. These were the "pre-Garanimal" days of fashion, where everything looked as if it were made with Butterick sewing patterns, regardless of where they were actually made. They didn't match anything but the kitchen drapes.

The boys looked twice as bad: long pants made in the leisure suit age, half polyester, all clashing. I have a picture from that year, where I went to school. I wore these white pants with thick red and blue stripes running the length of them. Oh god, how our parents tortured us.

Our moms led us around Eastland, stopping at Sears, JCPenney, or Lazarus. We'd try on polyester outfits, walking up and down a small runway of carpet, with our mother's approval.

The first step across a street without the helping hand of a mom or a dad was also an adventure, but the crossing guard was always there to help us.

There were countless new mountains to climb: art class with Mr. Baus, music with Mrs. Bauer, and gym with Denny Brake. All of our elementary school teachers seemed to be a frustrated "something else."

Our art teacher, Mr. Baus, had childhood dreams revolving around becoming a world-renowned artiste, traveling to Paris and London and Milan. Over the summers, he even traveled to Europe. When he spoke of his summer vacations, there was a glimmer of lost youth in his eyes. He was teaching art in grade school, but his mind was always on the French Riviera dining with other artists, talking about oils and acrylics and eating french bread, dipping it in extra virgin olive oil.

He stood in the front of his classroom, teaching five year olds how to fingerpaint and make chalk drawings. During the holidays, we explored such projects as "handprint turkeys" and "egg carton caterpillers" using plastic google eyes and pipe cleaners. One year, he did manage to teach us how to make real wax candles. We were given a piece of string that we tied onto a pencil. We waited in a line, ready to dip our strings into the hot green wax. Mr. Baus warned us not to touch our candles, because they were hot and they would burn us. Slowly, layer upon layer of wax built up until we all had green candles that didn't match anything we had at home. That seemed to be the way the 70s were for everything.

When ten minutes remained in art class, Mr. Baus would tell us to round up our art materials and put them away. We placed our unfinished works into this strange art contraption that let our paintings dry, stacking them neatly in blue wire mesh holders, separated by class: 1B, 2A, 3C, 4D, or 5B.

As we dragged along like confused puppies, too young to be organized on our own, Mr. Baus impatiently herded us along. Mr. Baus was infinitely single - and with children, it sometimes showed. The intensity in his voice grew slowly, building towards eruption. As kindergarteners, we hadn't learned how to bend or break the rules. We were just confused, little children, led by loud voices that said, "No!" or "Stop!"

Had we been just a few years older, we might have sent Mr. Baus to an early retirement. Then, he could move to Europe and escape us.

Mrs. Bauer, on the other hand, was a frustrated church choir leader. Her tired strawberry blonde hair curled around her head. Small wire-rimmed glasses framed her tired face. She gave us handouts, which we sang aloud in a choral group while she strummed her auto-harp with a rubber pick. If we were lucky, she would let us strum the harp as she pressed one button, then another.

We also participated in old traditional dances while Mrs. Bauer manned the turntable, placing the needle into the groove for the correct track. The needle tracked unevenly over the wax album's surface, hissing and cracking as it fed into the next song. Then, the emcee would announce the next song, followed by a count-down: 3...2...1...

Children reeled around, boys moving clockwise and girls moving counter-clockwise, doing dosey-dos and grab yer partners as we went. All in all it was a lesson in cooties.

Dancing was also a trial in patience as we struggled to find the right dance partner. I had always feared being paired with a girl named Dawn Norris. Dawn's father had obviously hoped for a prize-fighting welterweight.

instead he got Dawn.

Mrs. Luber and Mrs. Bauer constantly placed Dawn in the corner. She wagged her tongues at teachers and bullied the other students. There was never a moment. She wasn't scared to punch anyone who argued with her.

I usually had to hold hands with Mindy Warren, Alisa Limbers, Missy Waldorf, or one of the Collinsworth girls. Ick. They all had sweaty girl hands that I made a point of touching only when necessary.

Mr. Baus had always fought to get us out of our art smocks so we could wash up. Mrs. Bauer just struggled to get the boys to dance within five feet of the girls and hold hands.

In the passage of time, the boys would hold hands with the girls. In time, the teachers would have to pry boys and girls apart at homecomings and proms. For now, their chores were elementary, like playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

Grade School was the place where the rules were simple: don't make teachers angry, try not to get cooties, and no ditching in the lunch line just because it's pizza Friday.

Ah, what a rough life it was.

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