Kindergarten

                                                                                  Kindergarten



If I close my eyes I can see the events of this one day. Of course at the time it happened I saw myself as being much bigger. I remember thinking the only difference between me and the "grown ups" was the fact that they were bigger. I always felt that my thoughts and ideas, my feelings and opinions were every bit as valid as theirs were: it mattered not that they were taller than me. However, I did want to be taller.

September 1956 just a few weeks before my fifth birthday.......... At recess I filled my shoes with sand to "make me taller". I did not have time to empty them before retuning to the classroom. There I sat, slowly dumping the sand from my shoe into a little pile thinking how it was kind of like an hourglass.

I was enrolled in an exclusive Catholic school in the Colorado Springs area and I had a layperson as my kindergarten teacher. She approached me and snapped, "How would you like me to come to your house and dump sand on your floor?" She was leaning in so close I could smell her breath. 

In a split second several thoughts crossed my mind. That's my mom's floor, she likes it clean, don't you dare come to my house, and the thought that actually came out of my mouth.

"How would you like me to slap you across the face with this shoe?"

Well she snatched me up and actually threw me into the restroom, locking me in. I often wondered why that lock was on the outside. Catholic schools I guess.

There I was, locked in a bathroom with two stalls, one sink and one mirror. I put a shoe in each toilet, added all the toilet paper, and started flushing continuously. Overflow city. Then I took all the paper towels, put them in the sink and turned on the water. How I love water sports! Then with my little five-year-old hand, I hit the mirror with the side of my fist, shattering it and cutting myself in the process. Between the time the teacher heard the mirror break and her opening the door I had wiped blood all over the walls. I didn't know how to spell any curse words at the time.

Well, Mother Superior informed my mother that I would not be allowed to return to school until I saw a psychiatrist.

As a military dependent you must be referred to a shrink, so my mother took me to the base hospital. The doctor spoke to both of us, sent me out of the room, called me back in to speak privately, then he called my mother back in. He told her "You go back to that school and tell them the teacher needs a psychiatrist and if someone had locked me in a bathroom I would have done the same thing".

My mother being a master of tact, subtlety, and human communications ran right back and repeated it to Mother Superior. Mother Superior's reply was "Be that as it may, Diane can not return, and your other three children are not welcome back next semester".

Damn, not only did I get myself expelled, never to return, but my brothers and sister were banished as well.

This incident left me with two things. A sense of satisfaction since I never wanted to go to school anyway and a sense of power. I had done battle with an adult and from my point of view I had emerged victorious.

I think I was born confrontational. I learned to hate authority.