Jesus Crisis in Kindergarten?
Mom, Dad and I started out the year 1972 living in an apartment behind the May Company on the southern edge of Lorain, Ohio. Determined not to enroll me in Lorain schools, which were beginning to acquire a bad reputation, Mom took me (I'm almost certain it was on Valentine's Day) to enroll in the following year's kindergarten class at a church school in Elyria. I don't remember the name of the church or school now; but it was on the east side of N. Abbe Road where Cross Community Church (an added-on and renamed version) now stands.
Because I could read fairly well already and was ahead of their current class, the school didn't think I needed a whole year of kindergarten. Instead they put me in the current class, though it was February, so I'd be able to start first grade in the fall.
I don't recall making any friends there. I don't remember any of the teachers' or children's names at all - except perhaps one. I think the blonde girl with the big hair in the top row (directly beneath the teacher on the right) was Janice Orndorff, with whom I later went to public school.
my kindergarten class in Spring 1972 - I'm in plaid at the bottom left corner (for better or worse)
I never knew or talked to Janice much. I'm not even sure that's her in my kindergarten class picture (she's definitely in my 1st grade picture, which I will post later). I mainly remember her because she embarrassed me in Convenient Food Mart by catching me picking my nose and putting whatever I found there in my mouth. Disgusted, she told me that boogers turn into worms in your stomach - then they eat all your food and you starve to death, or something like that. I'm not sure I actually ate a booger that day (I don't want to believe it), but you can bet your snot I never ate one after that.
I was an only child until halfway through my four-month kindergarten bit, when my brother Michael was born on Easter Sunday. He was premature, and mom had to stay in the hospital longer than expected, so I stayed at my Uncle John and Aunt Rose's apartment on Wesley Avenue (down the street from my school) for a week or two. Thanks to the rush and drama, I didn't even get an Easter basket that year (though Mom later made up for it). As it was the first time I'd been away from home or without my mother, I feared the worst. When they let her call me from the hospital (they wouldn't let a five-year-old boy visit), I asked Mom, "Are you in heaven?" Thankfully, she was not.
April 1972 - me at age five, with Dad holding two-week-old Michael
When we lived in Lorain, I loved playing with the older boy who lived upstairs. Twelve-year-old Darren Schneider (I believe that was his name) had the coolest toys: miniature cowboys, Indians, astronauts, and army men, along with play horses and a huge plastic rocket that could transport them all to the moon. But since Darren couldn't be bothered with little old me more than once in a while, I looked forward to having my own full-time brother. I didn't understand how the brother business worked, however. So when mom came home and showed me the new baby, I thought something along the lines of "Forget the baby, where's my brother?" I was not happy to learn that my new brother was not twelve and did not have any cool toys. Plus, he cried all the time and pooped himself.
I would learn to love Michael for who he was. And soon I would graduate from kindergarten. Mom took me out to buy a suit for the occasion. She intended to let me choose the suit, but the one I fell in love with was covered with images of zoo animals - mostly zebras, if I recall correctly - and she wasn't going to spend that kind of money on a suit that resembled a pair of pajamas. In retrospect, Mom was right, though a picture of me in the zebra suit would have been priceless. Here's what we bought instead:
Walking down the aisle at my kindergarten graduation, June 2nd 1972
Sometime between kindergarten and first grade, we moved into a house on Lexington Avenue in Elyria. But I'll save the rest of my 1972 for a future blog.
-*-
Categories: JC's Childhood
Tags: Ohio Childhood Cross Community Church Elyria
aww, you were a cute young boy and lucky to have had a childhood. I never had a childhood and was an adult with adult concerns all throughout my young life. Pity but that was the way it was.
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I'm sorry to hear it, Joy.
I'm grateful for your comment.
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This is so sweet and so funny! I recall that my Mom had me sporting some plaid pants in the 70s. You're an amazing story teller.
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Thanks, Tara. I had some plaid pants, too, which may eventually make an appearance in one of these blogs.
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Cute pictures! Wild hair. Your dad looks so young - I am always surprised when I see people who look younger than myself having kids. I never will have any myself & time's running out anyways.
I was born in 72.
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Thanks, Lady. Dad was 27 and working at Ford Motor Company when these photos were taken. Seems like a lifetime ago. In a sense, it was. That was also the year Richard Nixon won re-election in a landslide.
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I love your teacher's hair. She looks like she sprouted little horns.
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It was in a church... maybe they should have performed an exorcism.
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LOL. This blog is dumb.
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I've written dumber ones.
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Absolutely Priceless!! ♥
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Hey, this is kid's stuff. Maybe it is the beginning of your memoirs. lol
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Thanks, Susan! And it might not be the beginning of my memoirs, Elena; but it's closer than most of my blogs to the beginning.
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Where do kids get these stories? Boogers turning into worms? First time I've ever heard that one!
My older sister told me that tomato seeds would grow in my stomach if I ate them and overnight I'd have green leaves growing out of my nose. And my dad had me convinced that spaghetti grew on trees!
It never occurred to me when I was 5 that no one else was walking around with tomato plants growing out their noses and, if spaghetti grew on trees, why didn't we have one in the back yard since we had just about everything else in the garden?
(And they've never let me forget that I believed them!)
This blog is not dumb; it's great! Tell me more!
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Thanks, Pinky! More are on their way, though perhaps not immediately.
Maybe it was one of those green tomato plant leaves I was trying to pick out of my nose. They're edible, aren't they?
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I love these childhood stories! Funnier than all get out! That teacher's hair cracks me up! I remember some of those big hair days in my past also! LOL Very entertaining blog today!
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Thanks a lot, Susan! The teacher's hair is my favorite part of the photo.
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What a neat look back to times past. Thanks for posting this. I look forward to the next "episode." I have a new blog up at http://musiclady54.blogspot.com/ .
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Thanks, Jane! Good to "see" you. Will check out your blog ASAP....
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well I hope this isn't a double post.. but I think I lost the first comment in transit.. ...
Makes me think of some of my own childhood of course... a mixture of wonderful memories and horror stories. Life is often a mix that way isn't it.
I wonder if you were jealous of your brother, he coming along when you had already started school. Sometimes children are jealous of the attention a new baby gets since they take so much of the parents time. And you having been an only until then.
But it sounds like you and your brother get along just fine... so you must have dealt with it.
I was told when I was young that watermelon seeds should not be eaten for the same reason.... and also was told by a very Christian friend that we all had to eat at least two bushels of dirt in our life times or we wouldn't go to heaven... or some such nonsense. Being 5 years old.. none of my friends or I questioned it. so that summer I recall eating a number of mud pies to get started because we all figured we had a long way to get to two bushel worth... LOL.. It's amazing what you believe as a child..
Those were the days...
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There were times when I was jealous of my brother and times when he was jealous of me, I suppose. But it's been a relatively friendly rivalry when there's been a rivalry at all.
I appreciate your sharing, Chris. Funny....
And I'm sorry we weren't able to see you at the Zygote event.
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A lot is expected of the oldest child in the family and I was the oldest. Sometimes I think this was lucky for me when I think about it. But often I had to set an example for my two younger sisters and I am still getting hell from my younger sister in Australia for being the oldest and she feels she was less important since she was three years younger than me.
Are you going to post later years also with pictures? I guess all your friends and readers want to know more about you. You are such a blogger that you have endless stuff to keep you busy every single day.
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Even at 5 years old I didn't believe in eating dirt, picking your nose and the consequences or even belief in Santa Claus. My parents were realistic and loving people and set an example for me that I still am thankful for. They also set high goals for me and that is what all parents should do but unfortunately few do and few keep their children from making the same mistakes that harm them later. I was told the facts of life as soon as I could understand them. For this I am grateful.
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With all due respect, I don't think getting caught picking one's nose once at age five has anything to do with one's parents being "realistic and loving" or setting "high goals" or not. Mom wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. You may not have believed in Santa Claus, but did you believe in the equally mythological Christian God? I'm assuming so, since your father was a "preacher." Somehow I think the myths of creation in six days, original sin, and a burning hell for "unbelievers" are far more dangerous than eating dirt or believing in Santa. The Bible tells much more evil tales of imaginary worms (ones that never stop gnawing) than Janice Orndorf ever did.
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A Lesson Learned
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc48/charlaxici/MondaY/3672328076.jpg
A man entered this lieberry [his boy a child was young a toddler not yet informed by school in thinking thoughts (four or five mabe six)]
this information commons to use a computer. As he sat this young man at a keyboard to keep him occupied while daddy worked He gave this old poet back his smile and even a laugh yes eye did laugh at this wonderfully impish MAN playing computer and having fun acting all grown. The imp did not wave his arms and bang them down as some young do he was a man he moved the mouse he clicked the icons on the bottom of the screen he looked so serious intent on working opening the programs impressing me but he was young for collage though now well prepared he knows just how to get the things to work and that was quite a lesson learned to observe this so young man at his computer work. A Lesson learned.
http://poetrypoem.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?poemnumber=872671&sitename=charlax&password=&poemoffset=0&displaypoem=t&item=poetry
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No I was not reprimanded for picking my nose but I was whacked a lot for being a rebel and doing things I wouldn't mention here. I also at a very early age saw the hypocrisy in those piously fake members of my father's churches and now have almost an atheists view on Christianity, especially the perverted
fanatics who call themselves Christians and believe God's word was faxed from the clouds on high. Spirituality doesn't depend on following every word in the Bible or Koran or any other book of religious doctrines that have been written by men. Just don't get me started on this. I love your response to my comment, John. It is so Jesus Crisis of you, the Taoist, Buddhist, atheist, free thinker and poet lover.
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Thanks for sharing this, Charlax!
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And thank you, Elena!
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that teacher's hair has some excellent wings.
you remember far more of normal life back then than i do - i only remember the not normal moments.
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I'm starting to forget stuff. Part of why I'm trying to write more of it down....
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Well, I've recently become reconnected with Janice on Facebook and she says that's not her in the photo and she doesn't remember embarrassing me in the store -- lol.
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It's amazins that you remember your childhood and kindergarten days. I don't have that much memory left.
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I enjoy seeing an old photograph. See how adorable kid you are way back.
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