First grade was an important, formative year for me, but not every event was traumatic. Some other memories I remember from that initial year of my primary school education include
- Playing Trees and giggling underneath the giant rainbow parachute in gym
- The orange UNICEF boxes that sat atop our desks around Halloween
- Mrs. Schuller’s earth-tone dresses
- The white Crayola paste that came in fat little jars
- The school secretary with curly gray hair, pink lips, and thick glasses who called even the adults “sweetie”
- The dramatic classmate who declared she was changing her name every day
- Giving Lizzy, my first-grade best friend, a Sweet Valley Kids book and a kiss on the cheek for Christmas
- Red-haired Calvin stabbing another kid in the knee with a pencil
- Those awkward metal children’s safety scissors that cramped my hand
- Ordering lunches the week before and receiving pale peach-colored lunch tickets to eat hot dogs in the cafeteria
- The blind Asian girl with the long black hair and pin-stripe dresses who annoyed me; she was so nice and got so much attention (Oh, me!)
- Passing love notes back and forth to a boy named Jeff through a nametag resting atop the empty desk between us, and him giving me a leopard-print pencil as a token of our love
- My mom cutting her wedding dress in half so I could wear it as a bride costume for Halloween, and Scott—a boy in the bee costume—asked me if he could bee mine
- A boy, Colin Moore, giving me his school photo (Was I the belle of the class?)
Yes, I still have that photo!
Helping me remember life back then is this very important document:
I stole those stickers from my teacher! Context: Mrs. Schuller would spread all her stickers on a long table in the front of the classroom, and we students would survey them in small clumps and select one to place on our graded quizzes and tests. Yes, ONE, as in ONE sticker!! I know, I too couldn’t think of something more preposterous. Even one sheet was something I couldn’t accept with a quiet grace.
I’d stand at the front of the room, tempted by all the glorious, cartoony fruits chirping punny, playful words of encouragement like “Berry Nice!” and the scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers categorizing smells in the most appealing way possible. I couldn’t choose, so I helped myself to all the sticker sheets I could get away with and pranced back to my desk, giddy with glee and high off my own malfeasance. I eventually got caught, and Mrs. Schuller scolded me in front of everyone and took back the stickers. Yet I felt no remorse—only frustration that I lost my loot. Then I brazenly decorated my journal with evidence of my crime! Unrepentant, I flaunted my spoils of war!
In addition to robbing my teacher of her sticker collection, I was doing or pretending to do other things back then. Let’s explore that now.
Lies! I definitely did not catch a lot of fish during my few fishing excursions at the state park. In fact, I dare say I “kot” next to no fish at all. But here’s a truth: My dad had two red trucks in the past half-century, and there’s the first of them, immortalized forever in crayon!
That might be a She-Ra toy lying beside me. My brother and I shared a bunch of those figures, and one did inevitably get left at the beach. Foreshadowing!
Behold the results of my dabbling in mixed media.
Note that references to Lizzy were once Annie—the nine-year-old deity next door who betrayed me by raiding my piggy bank and liking Paula Abdul instead of Madonna. I’d already begun to erase and replace her, literally.
As I mentioned, Lizzy was my best friend at the time. She had wispy blonde hair and a scar on her cheek. We were so different that I don’t know how we became friends. I had/have a rich fantasy life steeped in drama, romance, and pop culture. Conversely, she was quiet, no-nonsense, and nothing like the diva I depicted in the sunbathing illustration. (I never even went to the beach with Lizzy or Annie.)
Lizzy didn’t like it when my mom called her “Lizard,” so my mom vowed to pay her 10 cents every time that “accidentally” happened. I think one time after a sleepover, Liz went home with like a buck thirty in change.
She lived down the road from me on a farm with her huge Morman family. I remember being astonished that they really didn’t watch a lot of TV. I brought my favorite movie, Grease, over one night for a sleepover, and it was poorly received.
During a different playdate, I walked around their barn in bare feet. I stepped on broken glass but didn’t realize anything was wrong until I saw the blood all over my foot. I had to call my dad to come pick me up. That call might’ve been more terrifying than the sight of me bleeding.
For an extremely short period of time, we housed a stray black cat in our garage. My mom named her Emerald—Emmy for short—because of her green eyes. I can’t imagine we had her for longer than a month. Emmy eventually disappeared—maybe she ran away, maybe my dad let her out, I don’t know. He wasn’t one much for pets.
Cupcake cooking was such a rare chore it couldn’t even be illustrated beyond my floating, flowing ponytail!
I mean, I’m guessing? Talk about a hobby and interest you shouldn’t add to a Tinder profile.
My grandparents lived in New Jersey and visited us once. They weren’t super warm and affectionate people, so this might be a rose-colored reimagining of events.
GIFTS! How I loved them! I didn’t lack toys growing up; giving presents might be my family’s love language.
I’m so competitive with my brother about my trading card collection!
More evidence that I aspired for the fame of Madonna and Barbie and the Rockers.
If my mermaid adoration wasn’t apparent enough.
This reads as suggestive, right? It’s not just me?
LOL @ me throwing shade on rabbits. And look how obsessed I was with love! Goodness, I was so thirsty!
I wish! I do have a romantic heart.
Totally me if I were a bear (thinking thoughts about love, natch).
I looked up Lizzy on Facebook. These days, she’s married with four kids, lives in California, and makes pottery. She still has that faint scar on her cheek. It was interesting to look at pictures of her and only faintly recognize the girl I knew in first grade. Because I knew her from then, I feel strangely possessive, like I have some kind of claim to her, to The Real Liz. It’s as if who she is now isn’t actually factual because I don’t know anything about her present. How weird to realize that she’s done more than exist solely as a memory. For all this time, she’s been off being a person, having a real life, just like me.
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