0922blog

Yearning for Nap Time

There are so many incredibly important things going on, things that will shape our world for many years to come in monumental ways and so I would like to talk a bit about nap time, show and tell and elementary school trips, three of the more memorable and formative activities from my early and mostly innocent and exciting years on the planet.

During kindergarten nap time at Spring Valley School, which has since been knocked down and replaced with McMansions, we all unfurled our little blankets and laid down for a while. I have no idea for how long but it couldn’t have been for more than a half an hour, knowing how little kids are like mice and won’t stay still for very long.

Now, more than 60 years later, I have a visceral memory of nap time on a warm, fuzzy blankie but no specific memories. Strange to think about it now that I’m 70. It’s a big circle as I do savor my nap times these days even if I don’t always make the time for a short siesta.

Whether we needed to have nap time is debatable and how many of us actually fell asleep is even more questionable. My guess is that none of us actually napped. Maybe the kids who tied to be teacher’s pets did sleep. But I guess it was more a time for the kindergarten teacher to have a half hour of peace amid the otherwise, wild and uncontrolled young children. Also it gave us kids a little time to make believe we were napping when we were really talking really quietly to the friend on the neighboring blanket or even to the girl we had a crush on, such as Jan Roche, who had long blonde hair and eventually had nothing to do with me although I did invite her to my birthday party once and she actually showed up.

I don’t remember rising after nap time and thinking how rested I felt or how I energized I was for the rest of the kindergarten day. I believe the teachers meant well even if it was just a half hour of dead time during the day.

Show and tell is another tradition that has lived on through the generations although it goes by other names like in Australia where it’s called “show and share,” which was a time for the kindergarten kids to bring in and talk about something really meaningless to everyone but the kid who brought the thing in. I have no idea what I probably brought to class and discussed in great detail but it might have been a toothbrush or an apple or something equally thrilling. I don’t know for sure, check that, I am absolutely sure, that some kids brought stuff in that was actually cool and made the rest of us jealous, like a Yankee hat or a Yankee T-shirt, making the show and tell one more competitive event that I was sure not to score big on while the fortunate kids got yet another boost to their insatiable and growing egos.

I’m 70 years old and still thinking about jealousy over show and tell. Go figure.

Today show and tell involves a group of us alleged grown-ups showing the different kinds of IPA’s that we drink or a clipping of a New York Times story to stimulate discussion about when the end of times will arrive. Not innocent like the apple, toothbrush or Yankee T-shirt but still fun.

Class trips were another welcome diversion. The best was the annual trip to the Hostess bread factory in Paterson, which, I believe, has since burned down, no doubt resulting in very toasty cupcakes and white bread. It was definitely cool to see how they made the bread and stuff and then to actually get these miniature loaves of white bread as a gift, which we all devoured on the bus ride back to school.

Another annual class trip took us to a place where they made small metal things that looked like fasteners of some kind or maybe locks but I don’t think they were locks. I didn’t know then and I still don’t have a clue as to what the little things were but I remember they gave us a few as gifts after the tour, which we all promptly tossed into the garbage when we got back to school. I would guess that the fastener company was either owned by or employed the father of one of the kindergarten children and I hope we didn’t hurt his or her feelings by throwing out the things that the father helped make.

I think the place has since been replaced with a sushi restaurant.

Those were the only class trips I can remember and I doubt it was because the Hostess factory and the place that made mysterious, little fastener-like objects were that thrilling. Maybe those were the only places we went because of school budget concerns or maybe the other trips were so boring, like a visit to the county park or to the gas station that was owned by the father of one of the kids, that I have wiped them off my memory banks.

Fortunately I’m not in kindergarten now because class trips and show and tell have been on hold for the last seven months in most schools because of virtual learning and the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus seeps through all the cracks right down to the youngest among us, taking away things that were previously all taken for granted, like cool class trips to a bread factory.