MY DAYS OF YORE

I remember some of my days of yore, some happy and some embarrassing.

It seems I can remember embarrassing times better than my cool moves. Could it be that there were simply more of them? When I try to reach back in time I can only go back to my little monster episodes at about age three.

When shopping, I had turned acting “ugly” into an art form. Harnesses for kids hadn't been invented yet, and the only restraint was to hold your little brat by the hand. I'm not saying that all kids were brats, but we who were, always performed true to style. One of my favorite ploys when shopping was to bite mammy’s hand, until she had to let go or be maimed for life. Then I was free, and could shop on my own, by running all over the store. This was pretty good for a three year old.

You could always tell when mammy, and me had been shopping, for she would have bite marks on her hands, and I would have switch marks on my legs; something I received when I got home. The switching I would get after we arrived home, helped to preserve mammy’s sanity. She always knew she could get even with me, as soon as she could cut a fresh switch. I think I was the cause that some of our bushes never could grow, because mammy kept cutting the limbs off.

Another thing that helped mammy was, I lived to be five years old, and it was time to go to school. They had preschool of a sort in those days. Preschool was what you did before going to school, such as putting clothes on, and eating breakfast !!

I remember the first day of school, what a day of discovery that was. They gave me a desk where the lid would raise up, and the top had an indentation at the top to hold a pencil. It also had an ink well - - full of ink. I was fascinated by that ink well! You could put your finger in it, and your finger would turn blue, and then by putting your finger in your mouth, your mouth would turn blue, and would have the strangest taste in it.

Also another feature I discovered was you could take the inkwell out, and spill the ink all over your white pants, and be sent home.

I never missed a day of school the first year, but in the second year, I found that you could use something called absence instead of attending class. All you had to do was, pretend to be sick when it was time to go to school, and then after school started you could quickly get well and play all day! What a great invention that was.

About this time, I discovered that boys and girls were not exactly the same, and I would tell you about that now, but I don't have time. Perhaps I can tell about it later.

It is said; Spare the rod and spoil the child! I think my correction rod was defective, for even after using the rod quite a bit on me, it didn't help, for I was spoiled anyway !!