Ran first in Sunday, July 11, 2021 editions of Louisiana Gannett newspapers

The news that a kindergarten education will be required for all 5-year-olds in Louisiana beginning with the 2022-23 school year brings back sobering memories of a shameful start to a non-remarkable run in education: my own.

This cautionary tale begins around autumn of 1964, the backstretch of what had been an eventful year.

Clay beat Liston and became Muhammad Ali. President Lyndon Johnson had his hands full with a conflict in south Asia. The United States was training astronauts, Beatlemania was sweeping America, and, as kids like me began to look toward Halloween, the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees were locked in mortal combat in a World Series for the ages.

Down in Dillon County, South Carolina, another drama was unfolding on a much smaller scale.

We were new in town that fall, and 4-year-old me and my Wrangler jeans and pocketed T-shirt were dispatched to The Little Red School House, located in the chain-link fenced backyard of Mrs. Ernestine Rogers on the edge of this little town called Lake View.

This was kindergarten.

Not knowing any better, I put up no fight. And things weren’t that bad. I got to know people who would be classmates for the next 10 years, Glenn and Boyd and Jay and Bobby and Barbara and Debbie, a Kathy and a Cathy, all these other suckers who’d been snatched from their backyards and placed into this one, away from their dogs and bikes and iceboxes.

But, ignorance is bliss. We embraced the Jumbo Crayon, the white glue, the construction paper and cardboard. We learned our ABCs and took a stab at cursive writing. It was almost like Vacation Bible School, right down to the Kool-Aid and cookies but minus Bible Drills.

And Mrs. Ernestine was aces. Patience of Job, a natural love for children. By October, after an indoctrination month, I felt like life on the inside might suit me. Maybe I’d be one of the ones who’d make it.

It all turned, as life can, on one small event that set my destiny toward an inglorious ending: Hunter Griffin showed up one mid-October day in a Batman suit.

Mrs. Ann, his mom, got it for him for Halloween. He was busting it out early, and why not? He was the envy of the backyard, everybody wanting to feel his cape and the girls all saying, “Can I touch your utility belt?”

Being new in town and armed with no muscles and nothing more than Wranglers with about an 18-inch inseam, there was only one thing I could do: cry and beg until momma broke down and ordered me a Superman suit.

It was a thing of beauty. The blue tights. The red “S” and red speedo and black belt because who needs a stupid utility belt when you’re Superman? I said neg on the boots though: went straight black Keds or PF Flyers instead.

I wore it to The Little Red School House — and magic happened, immediately. After she’d gotten home from Big School that afternoon, Kerrie Sue Rogers, the daughter of Mrs. Ernestine, asked me if I wanted to ride with her on the back of her bike. I said yes, but only because Kerrie Sue had golden hair and chocolate-milk skin and was the prettiest girl any of us had ever seen or could ever hope to see. Plus this was no girl, this was practically a woman, 12 and maybe even 13.

I got on the bike, put my arms around her perfect waist, and off we went. It was bliss — for about 10 feet. Right up until the time my cape got caught in the rear wheel’s spokes.

Kerrie Sue was trying to pedal. My neck had jerked back so violently I almost lost my grip on her fetching middle. She managed to get a foot down and I tumbled, like falling off a horse, my face turning blue like my tights.

Worst of all, it was Hunter Griffin, in full Batman regalia, who raced over to untangle me. The ultimate indignity.

That day was the first and last time I wore the Superman suit. It was tossed in the outside trash barrel at home and burned, a costume of betrayal.

And it was the last day I went to kindergarten, which was NOT mandatory, something I discovered right after momma picked me up and asked me how I got the big red rope burn or whatever around the front of my neck. Instead I spent the days with my collie Sport and held out ’til first grade.

Such was the first in a very long line of both personal and public humiliations. It’s a tough lesson — and I’ve had to learn it time and again — that if you’re not a superhero, don’t try to be one, and if you’re not Superman, don’t strut around in a cape.

Two months of quality Carolina kindergarten education should have taught me that.

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