First Grade Redux

Hard to believe that it has been 30 years since I was in the first grade at Jefferson Elementary School in Richland. I had a terrible teacher that year, probably the worst of all my years in the educational system. Her name was Miss Schneck and, with a name like that it's hardly a surprise that she was a first-class bitch. I struggled those early years in school. My nuclear family was falling apart. I couldn't cut a circle out of a square piece of paper. I was too slow at math "time tests", but I always got the answers right. It didn't help that I couldn't see the chalkboard until I got glasses in the third grade...

Life is wonderfully simple when you're only 6 years old. I had potential. I was actually social—the polar opposite of who I am today. So would I throw away the past 30 years and start all over again? I would. But would it matter? Wouldn't I be doomed to repeat things in just the same way if I had no knowledge of what was to come? Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of the person I've become. I've done well both academically and professionally. I've made friends with people of exemplary character and heart. I even experienced a bonafide miracle when my college dormmate turned out to be the long lost cousin I probably would never have known.

But I would do it all over if for no other reason than to get back the future that I no longer have...