Backtracking a little into the second grade again

I had precognitive dreams through all of second grade. Every day, I would go to school and have this feeling of deja vu, like we had already done what we were doing the day before. It never really spooked me out until I was much older and realized what had happened that entire year.

Everything felt familiar, even the next chapter of the book that Mrs. Dorman was reading to us, which was James and the Giant Peach. I kept thinking to myself, "Didn't she read us that chapter yesterday?" I never knew what the ending of the book was, just the next chapter, one chapter at a time.

I went home sick numerous days that year; I constantly had headaches. Both the nurse and my mom were sympathetic about the headaches; Mom has them, too.

And even though I wasn't there a lot of the time, I excelled at my studies that year. There wasn't a math problem I couldn't do. I surprised everyone with how quickly I was picking everything up.

I remember my mom helped me write my first "research paper" on lions or cheetas or maybe just big cats in general. We had a set of encyclopedias at home, and we got most of the info out of that. I remember the two of us at the kitchen table finding out all these new and interesting facts about cats, and my mom helping me to construct complete sentences and paragraphs. We put it all in a yellow folder, and we put a picture of a big cat on the cover. That one got an A+.

I remember singing very loudly at the holiday pageant that year, wearing my old bride costume my mom had made for Halloween a couple years earlier. Someone somewhere has video footage of that concert cuz I remember getting to watch myself sing.

We did a mixture of Christmas, Hanukkah, and non-denominational holiday music that year since Mrs. Dorman was Jewish. She was always trying to incorporate all the holidays together so we could learn that there were more than just Christians in the world. We sang "Silent Night", "Dreidel Spin", and "Snoopy and the Red Baron" that year. We learned to make a cork-popping sound by plucking the sides of our mouth with our fingers for the Snoopy song. We all got such a kick out of that.

Then on St. Patrick's Day, she brought in green bagels for all of us. I remember fearing they would taste like spinach or broccoli or something, but they were just plain ole bagels made with food coloring. We learned a little bit about the Irish that year, potatoes and leprechauns and such (hey, we were 7; she wasn't gonna tell us about the wars and the famine, etc).

Mrs. Dorman always wanted to teach us about the whole world, as much as the school system would let her. She felt it was important for us to know that there were all kinds of people out there, very much unlike us, and that having knowledge of that would help us to not pass judgement or condemn people so quickly for their lifestyles and beliefs. Mrs. Dorman was also the only teacher in the school that was divorced.

Oh, I almost forgot. THE BEN STORY. Ben sat next to me for awhile that year. I think he was on Ritalin, one of two boys who were taking the drug because they were so hyperactive. Ben always made me laugh; he was definitely the class clown. So one day, Ben brought in a pair of wax teeth. He was wearing them during class. After a while, Mrs. Dorman asked him to put them away, but he refused. By 2:30, she was at her wit's end and demanded that he hand them over until the end of class. He got up from his seat, ran for the side door, and left the building. The principal was called, along with the few male teachers we had. For the next half-hour, we watched from our classroom window as Mr. Moyher and Mr. Mickalovich chased Ben around the school. When we were dismissed at 3, Ben was still going strong. None of us wanted to leave. He was finally caught around 3:15 by Mr. Moyher when he tripped and fell.

Second grade was also the year Kyle L. moved into town, right across the street from Krissy. Oh, he was cute. I had such a crush on him. I even invited him to my MacDonald's birthday party. He ended up being the only boy there, but he sure as hell didn't mind. He was the center of attention that whole day. He moved away again the next year. I wonder where he is now.

Second grade ended with a horrible case of the chicken pox for both me and M. We had to go to D's high school graduation party covered in spots, and my dad dragged us to Riverside Amusement Park like that, too, because my cousins from Canada were visiting and he had promised them he'd take them. He never promised us that. He never took us to any amusement park. So there we were, under the scorching sun, itching like crazy and crying our eyes out. We ended up sunburned and our chicken pox lasted even longer than they were supposed to. And we both ended up with scars on our faces from those damn things.