by Jim Bessey

Created on: August 30, 2010

My first day of school was a humdinger. That was kindergarten,. I was five years old, the oldest of four kids. I knew nothing of school or teachers or classrooms. I was the family trail-breaker, and had to pay the price for blazing forward. I doubt I’ll ever forget that first day, my initial foray into fifteen years of formal schooling.

"School" was a little white church with peeling paint, dull gray shingles and faded stained-glass windows. The floors were natural wood the color of caramel, buffed to a sheen by hundreds of sock-clad feet. There were only two teachers: Mrs. Lannon, dark-haired and severe; and Mrs. Arnot, white haired and angelic. By some unusual stroke of luck, my teacher was Mrs. Arnot.

I walked to school, and can't recall if riding the bus was even an option for us "village kids." The boys and girls from outlying farms certainly arrived by bus. The walk, for me, was a bold and adventurous cross-town journey. It was the farthest I'd ever gone alone, although it's entirely possible that Mom accompanied me on that first day. That would have been like her. If she had to get somewhere in town, she walked. She hardly ever drove, since we only had one car and Dad worked all day in another town.

Did I walk boldly into that little white church? Was I afraid or excited? Those memories, weathered by the intervening forty-plus years, are murky at best. My first time in a classroom, my angelic teacher, a whole gaggle of new fiends to meet - you'd think my brain would have marked all those firsts as "important." I do recall my consternation learning to "skip," which felt clumsy and foreign at the time. I remember Duck-Duck-Goose, and can still picture that faded church surrounded by brilliant white mounds of snow. Obviously, all of those memories came later.

Unfortunately, those recollections are clouded by a single incident that cut short my day. Sometime during the first hour or so of kindergarten, Theresa Donovan (not her real name) bit our teacher. That's right, she bit our lovely, white haired, soft-voiced teacher. I don't know why, and I'm sure the damage was minor. I must have been the sensitive type, though, because I left immediately.

I ran all the way home.

What an inauspicious start to my illustrious decade and a half of classrooms. I ran more than a mile across town - down one hill, past the stores downtown, up another big hill, then left onto my street and all the way back to my house. Was my mother surprised by my untimely return? Was she worried or upset? Did I have to be coaxed and cajoled into going back the next day? I have no idea.

Mom remembered that day clearly, however. She loved to tell that story. Her hazel eyes would twinkle and her smile would light up her beautiful face. And she'd laugh, that contagious laugh you cannot resist. I'd give anything to hear her laugh again, even if I had to be the butt of the joke.

Eventually, some thirteen years later, Theresa graduated somewhere near the top of her class. Come to think of it, so did I. We're both all grown-up now, and Theresa probably doesn't bite anymore. I wonder if she ever recalls that day with an embarrassed flush or a faint smile. I stayed for the rest of my classes, year after year. I walked home plenty of times, but never before the day was done and never at a dead run.  

I'm sure there are lots of silly, slightly embarrassing moments that populate the school years that followed. "The day Theresa bit the teacher" holds the top slot among them. That was the first one, the very first of those funny little times that are the stones we step on as we cross the river.

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