I learned in kindergarten it's important to tell the story...

I started kindergarten in the fall of 1955. We lived in the Renton Highlands then in one of those little cracker box homes built in 1942 to house the great influx of people who came here to work for Boeing and Pacific Car & Foundry (PACCAR) during World War II...

Our kindergarten class met in the basement of the neighborhood Baptist Church about five blocks from our home. I don’t recall much about it except a few fleeting little memories that somehow stuck with me through the years. Mostly I remember playing outside in a small field (which was actually a wee bit of lawn and a gravel parking lot).

The boys hung out together and played tag, kick ball, and told tall stories to each other. The girls? They had their girl clan and what they did or talked about remained mostly a mystery to me. I do recall sitting around a big table drawing on butcher paper. Then we’d all take turns and tell everyone the story in the picture. This was one of my favorite things to do. I loved drawing cars, houses, boats, fire trucks, and landscapes with lots of trees where great adventures took place.

I’m thinking I liked drawing (big) houses because my two brothers and I shared the same bedroom. My older brother Terry had his own bed and my younger brother Steve and I had the bunk-bed. I got to sleep on top! My dad being the super frugal practical kind of guy he was bought the beds from Army Surplus.

In those days we spent most of our time outside and were always playing some kind of game. My aspirations to be a big sports star however was short lived. Born cross-eyed I had surgery the year before kindergarten. I have what’s called “learned depth perception” so I was very busy that year trying to figure out how close or far stuff was from me without getting bonked on the head or worse. The “learning” curve, suffice it to say, was steep.

I think that was about the time I decided I was gonna be a genius instead of a sports star. ;O)

All kidding aside, what I got from kindergarten was the bug for the creative process. Kindergarten was a wonderful environment (like home was) where we could be creative, expressive, and social. You could make cool things out of pretty much anything and we were free to use our imagination. As it turned out, it was my favorite year in academia that is until I got to college (which ironically was a lot like kindergarten).

And though “the Man” is often there to remind me life is about money, prestige, and expensive toys. I know that’s not necessarily true because...

"I learned in kindergarten it's important to tell the story in the picture and share it with others."

Tip of the hat to Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten. This post was created for the "Kindergarten ain't just for kids!" contest on the Charles Buell blog.