of life...and 64 Crayolas.....

I still have memories of being in the first grade. Sticky paste that came in plastic jars, being in school all day, making new friends...it is as vivid as if it were yesterday. I remember that while I had a box of 16 crayons, a step up from the eight fat crayons that I had used in kindergarten, several of my classmates had the colossal box of 64 Crayolas. I swooned over having so many varieties of red in one box. It wasn't until I was in the third grade that I finally got my box of 64...but by then it had lost its luster. Many of my classmates had already had their boxes and used them. It  was disappointing in a way, that by the time I had finally caught up with the pack, the pack had moved on to something else! It was the same with finally having a color TV; in 1977 everyone pretty much had one, yet we were finally able to purchase a used color console. And I thought we were rich! I look back and laugh now. Ah, perceptions.
I love reading this little essay by Robert Fulghum and apparently other writers feel the same way. It brings back a kinder, gentler time when all we had to do was to show up for life. Everything was provided to us, we had very few worries, except maybe missing cartoons on Saturday mornings if we slept in too long!
So, sit back and enjoy this little dissertation and being five years old again........




I can never read Robert Fulghum’s poem, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” too many times. Every time I read it I gain a new truth. Today I’m concentrating on the line, “Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.” I like that. Very much. Here it is:

Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday school.
These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.

Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.