(For those times when I have absolutely nothing to write about)
Poster
Hmmm. This is random. Does anyone else remember back in '92 when Batman Returns was about to come out, and people kept going around stealing the movie posters out of the bus stop shelters in DC? It would be really interesting/cool/sad to walk in someone's house 21 years later (yes, it's been that long) and see one of those up on their wall.
Cards
I knew this day would come. I have a confession to make: I wasn't always squeaky clean. There was a time when I was a stone cold criminal. I didn't care what I took or who I hurt. The year was 1985 and three-year-old me asked my mother for a box of Ghostbusters cereal. She said no. I just remember thinking, "If she won't buy me food then I know she won't buy me these." I picked the item up, put it in my pocket and walked right out of the store. I was so coldblooded that I waited until I got to church to start playing with them. It was a pack of "The Jacksons Victory World Tour" trading cards and stickers. My mother saw me and beat the hell out of me right there on the pew. I remember looking up and seeing Jesus' face...literally. My church has a giant painting of Jesus on the wall. From behind teary eyes, it looked like He was shaking his head. I never stole again.
Teddy Bear
For my Kindergarten graduation I received a Teddy Ruxpin. It was a momentous occasion. I played with him for all of two minutes before I got another dose of good news. In a rare "never to be seen again" moment, my mother AND father decided that we'd go to the movies to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit...together. It was a day for the record books. The whole way home I was excited. I'd just moved on to 1st Grade, we went to see a movie that I wanted to see in the regular theater and I didn't have to wait for it to go to the dollar movie, and I was going home to play with my new best friend, Teddy Ruxpin.
I got home and Teddy was nowhere to be found. I screamed like my child had been kidnapped. Eventually I found him face down in a bucket next to the kitchen trash. I screamed like it was a human body. "GRANDMA! WHAT HAPPENED!" Her story is that she saw it on the couch, picked it up and then it started talking. She thought it had "the devil in it" and threw into the kitchen.
My Graduation
Okay, this one isn't random, but that Teddy Ruxpin story reminded me of something. I'm playing my Kindergarten graduation over and over in my head and I still can't decide where the line is between my rosy memory of it and the reality of how cheesy it was.
As is true today, I was always one of the shortest ones in the group. I think I was either first or second to walk in. There were pieces of brown masking tape randomly placed on the floor and stage. One piece was where we were supposed to stop at the entrance to the multipurpose room. Then the teacher would start playing "We Are the World" on this brown box-looking DCPS-issued record player and we could start walking in when Lionel Ritchie started singing. "Wait for the person ahead of you to get to the second piece of tape before you start walking. Take one step then stop. Take another step then stop. It's a march, not a walk." I don't know why I still remember that clear as day.
I also remember all 15-20 of us being at our seats long before the song was over, so we just stood there with our hands at our sides until it went off. I memorized everyone's part, because my memory was strange back then too, so my job was to be ready in case someone else got cold feet or forgot. It wasn't done tactfully. If they were at the mic and forgot a line, then I just yelled it out. "PARIS FRANCE IS THE FASHION CENTER OF THE WORLD!"
That's another thing. There was no theme or logic to our graduation. We just got up and said random stuff. It wasn't even stuff we learned throughout the year. I think the teacher was trying to keep her job by making it look like we were recapping our many lessons from the school year. It should've been obvious when we jumped from topic to topic. After that Paris thing, we talked about the cherry blossoms downtown, African drums, and then...the least logical or school related:
All of the boys had to stand up and move to the back of the stage. We counted to ten and then started walking slowly to the front while shouting:
We love Doug Williams
with all our heart
He made us proud
and he's given us a start
He's the best quarterback
we could ever send
to the Super Bowl
with the Redskins
(count to four in your head then lift your fist over your head)
HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!!!
After it was over, we all stood up on stage and marched off to Tevin Campbell's, "Tomorrow (A Better You, A Better Me)."
[caption id="attachment_3416" align="alignnone" width="604"]
We are the world, we are the children...[/caption]
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