As you can probably tell from looking at me, it’s been quite awhile since I went to school, but I can still remember what that first day was like. It was exciting and anxious at the same time. Will your friends be in class with you? Will you like your teachers? Will you get to sit next to a pretty girl?

Although I can’t actually remember the very first time I stepped into kindergarten class at Tilton Elementary School, two blocks from home, I can for some reason remember the year before, when I was too young to go. I remember sitting on my front step and watching some of the other kids on the block trooping off to school. I can still, to this day, remember feeling sorry for myself and dreaming of what a magical place school must be, where you learned all kinds of special things only the big kids knew.

I also remember waiting for the neighborhood kids to come home after school and how different they suddenly seemed. They had a worldly sophistication those of us left behind didn’t have. There was a mysterious air about the way they talked that could only be picked up from whatever secrets were being kept in that light-tan brick building I wasn’t allowed to enter.