I allow my 5th-graders classroom visitation rights at lunch time if they have complete assignments and their behavior is noteworthy.

      During one such break I asked how many of had been in kindergarten together. Six or seven raised their paws. 

     “Remember our teacher?” Carla asked.

     They smiled in a shared remembrance, which sparked a series of other recollections. 

    The warmest of contented smiles grew on Carla. She’s a character, taller than the rest, outgoing, bold even.  She said, “Do…you remember…him?”

  The others all cooed as if they each cradled a newborn babe. 

   “Oh…the blonde.”

    They sang it and their eyes sparkled. “Yes.” They murmured in unison, “The blonde one. “ Juanita, in a trance like state, said’ His blue eyes.”

   “I loved him,” declared one.

  “Me too,” said anther.

   “We all did” offered a third.

   A dreamy glaze came over them and they quieted into a swoon-like trace. I’d never seen this before in them or any girls in all my years.  Absolute silence. They stared at the ceiling, eyes up or even closed.  Lost, gone.

    I’m thinking THESE ARE TEN-YEAR-OLD GIRLS! OMG…WHAT IS GOING ON HERE.! YOU…ARE IN A SPECIAL MOMENT HERE. THIS IS B.I.G!  THESE GIRLS ARE SHARING PRIVATE MOMENTS HERE. WOW! WATCH! LEARN! OBSERVE!

   One girl said, “If he held hands with someone else I would go up and separate their hands.  Or push that girl.  I wanted him for ME!”

       The others giggled.

      “Me too! Me too!” said Carla. She held her hand over her mouth to hide a smile.

     “The light”, offered Rachael, “Remember when the sun ‘shined’ on his hair it was beautiful. It lit up like the sun.”

     Now Rachel was a good student but she never said or wrote a poetic thing that entire year. Probably not in her whole life.  So, I’m dumb-founded.

      “Who was this kid?” I asked.

      Juanita broke through their memory web, acknowledged my existence and said,  “He was just perfect.”

      In Samoa I’d seen jungle chickens in a similar state. Usually they’d been hit by a bus or hit in the head with a well-aimed volcanic rock. 

     “Just Perfect” went from one girls lips to the next…JUST PERFECT…JUST PERFECT.”

     “What the heck is this kid’s name I asked?”

      A sad look encompassed them. A shoulder shrug went up here. Two or three of them lifted both their hands palms upward there.  The universal sign of I don’t know.

      “What?”  I asked again. “You don’t know his name?”

      They shook their heads with a collective  “No.”

      “How?” I pushed forward with this great mystery.

      “He moved.”  Nods of agreement confirmed the statement.

      “So you ALL lost your hearts in Kindergarten when you were five years old over the same blonde, blue-eyed boy?  And now you are ten or eleven.”

       “Si…yes…yes, si… he was perfect...like a dream.”

        “Can I say something?” I asked.

         My small girl-herd still in a semi-hypnotic state tolerated me.

        “You know guys have a first love too. But usually it’s around sixteen or seventeen. And then we run into the girl about fifteen years later and she has one- tooth, weighs four hundred pounds, and doesn’t need a mask on Halloween.”

        They snapped out of their hypnotic state. They groaned. Smiles disappeared. Rachael wagged her finger at me.

        “Mr. Karrer, AHHHHHH! You just ruined our dream.”

 

         I don’t think so. And I have a mission now. Gonna dig up a picture of this Adonis in kindergarten. 

        Love my lunches. Always learn something.