[4-5 years old]
Around the age of four, my mom had to go back to work, and so she enrolled me at LaPetite Academy for preschool, kicking and screaming. Of course, she cried her eyes out leaving me there each morning, but I ended up adjusting, as I apparently do with other challenges, eventually.
Plenty of vivid memories from daycare. First of all, I loved playing The Three Stooges (why yes, I was Curly in fact) and I hated naptime. I can still remember the blue cots. My spatial memory was already well developed: if you asked me to, I could draw you an exact blueprint of my daycare to scale even today. I can do that with most any place I've ever been; kinda helps in that I never get lost (barring distractions). Mrs McCann was my teacher and was an amazing lady, and Mrs Lydia made this fantastic broccoli casserole that I raved about so much my mom got the recipe from her. Unfortunately this love of food also I was already starting to get chubby even at this point. It's so funny who I remember and who I don't; there are a couple of teachers through the years whose names I'd have to struggle to remember, but not those two. Had my first kiss in Kindergarten. We were on a field trip in one of those stereotypical daycare buses and this girl and I were out of our seats by the big sliding door kissing and got in trouble. That would be my last kiss for around 20 years. I was actually reintroduced to her by my mom at high school; she was in the same regional honors band as me one year. After being introduced, we never spoke again. Also remember being on a different field trip and our driver saw some estranged ex while driving around in the middle of the city, Airways Blvd or close, and we pulled some crazy U-turn and followed them at high speed... fairly confident the person lost their job, but at the time it was exciting as hell, being in some sort of car chase. We went to McKellar Park in Whitehaven a lot; hiked and played around the lake on the trails.. they would just let us roam freely. Also I remember visiting the Chucalissa indian museum/burial mounds a lot, which usually involved the purchase of blowguns and tomahawks. Because of my age, I graduated from Kindergarten twice, so some of these memories may be from age five.
Anyway, I remember geeking out hardcore on the Tandy TRS-80s at daycare. I was amazed that this normal looking tape drive could be plugged into this tv-like device and produce some sort of game. Still remember looking at the manuals and wanting to deconstruct the thing. I am fairly certain I began whining about getting a computer of my own as soon as my fingers touched the keyboard, but it would be a year or so before it happened. My best friends in the neighborhood Brian & Keith (brothers who lived two houses down) and Adam (in a different part of the neighborhood) both had Tandy TI-99/4As, and I remember playing Parsec in Brian & Keith's room for what seemed like hours. I was totally smitten. They'd try to pull me out of there to play a game of Yahtzee (they were always playing Yahtzee there for some reason) but I wouldn't budge. Also remember playing on the slip n slide down their hill. Their dad got a new job elsewhere in the state and they moved, and it totally broke my heart.
Other random memories: my dad's 1972 orange chevrolet truck, which still has a place of honor at their home, even though it's beat to hell and doesn't run. Oddly enough I don't have a lot of sibling memories from this time; perhaps the gulf had already started to grow. I think my brother Vince, the next-youngest, had issues with me replacing him as the youngest. Issues as in he teased me constantly. He is eight years older than me, so it would be awhile before I could hold my own in one of these contests. I definitely remember choking for breath while being smothered by a blanket though.
Somewhere in there I'd lost my grandfather at age four, but I don't remember that one, as well as I remember my grandmother. Her I remember all too well. You may have noticed I only mention one set of grandparents. This is because I grew up with my mom's family being my family. My dad's family, outside of rare visits to his brother, did not exist. I do remember going to his mother's funeral, which was way later, but she had little to no part in my life. I still don't know all the details there really, other than my dad converted from Southern Baptist to Catholic to marry my mom, and his family didn't really support him. I know that he had to hitch rides to get to his baseball games and no one from his family ever even showed up to watch him play. He was a triple star athlete (football, basketball, and baseball) and could have played in the major leagues if he hadn't married my mom and joined the military. As I continue to wade through my adult life waist deep in selfish unhappy people, I realize the enormous sacrifices my parents made for each other and for myself, and I have a limitless amount of love for them. Except for the whole faith thing. But we'll get to that.