Out of all the houses we lived in, Mt. Airy was my favorite. I loved the routines and patterns and consistency. I watched Barney every single morning. When it was over, I knew it was time to get my book bag and go ride the bus to kindergarten.
I waited for the bus on the white rock at the end of our driveway. Painted onto the rock were the large black numbers 7007 stenciled and carefully centered. I liked the symmetry of our house number, even if I didn’t know the word for the balanced, easy to remember address.
I loved kindergarten. That year there was a presidential election. A whole school week was filled with presidential themed lessons and activities. The grand finale of the unit was the Kindergarten Mock Election.
Our teacher asked each child to come to the front of the room and tell the class which president they would vote for if they were old enough. When it was my turn, I stood and confidently said “I’d vote Bush”.
“And why would you vote for Bush?” the teacher prompted. On the spot standing in front of my classmates I panicked. I didn’t realize there was a follow up question. Had I missed her asking the other kids to further explain their political views?
“Because I like bushes.” I said quickly and rushed to sit criss-cross-applesauce back in my spot before there could be anymore interrogating.
I didn’t particularly like bushes. I liked the weeping willow tree in my front yard where I sat on nice days. I liked the noise of the wind in the leaves and the natural canopy perfect for picture-book binge-reading sessions. But I didn’t have any real affection for bushes. For the rest of the school day, I felt ashamed of my lie. Now everyone thought I liked bushes when the truth was I thought they were just fine. And I didn’t know the name of the other person running for president.
When I came home, I watched Bambi from beginning to end. Every afternoon. I didn’t want a different movie, I wanted Bambi, and to this day I can hear the song that played when it was raining. “drip drip drop oh the rain is fallllling down de da down de da down de da da”.
I knew what was going to happen next. I knew what I was supposed to do when my shows were over. Bambi and Barney were my markers of time before I could read a clock.
Homework that night was to draw a picture with a sentence caption of what we would do if we were president.
“Give to someone else.” I wrote, with a stick figure handing a key to a different stick figure.
“What is that?” my mother asked, walking past my scholarly studies.
“It’s the key.”
“What key?” She asked.
“The key for the president. I would give it to someone else. I don’t want to be president. No matter what some people would be mad at you. I’d switch with someone else who wants the key.”
I was a self-aware five-year-old.
With homework done it was time for my daily chore. My first routine big-girl responsibility was to throw the food scraps from the day over the chain link fence in our backyard. I had my own dedicated silver scrap bowl, with tall sides. The dents in the side helped my hands grip my bowl. It was sometimes slippery from condensation. The metal was almost always cold, even in summer.
Each evening, I’d throw potato peels and eggshells over the fence for Brandi’s inspection. She was always on the other side of the fence jumping and barking with excitement that I was outside to play with her.
Sometimes my hands slipped, and I accidentally threw the whole bowl over the fence along with the food scraps. On those occasions I would walk alllll the way around to the fence gate where Brandi would be doing somersaults in excitement. She was a big dog, a German Shepherd. But even though she was taller than me with her paws reaching over top of the chain link fence, I was in no way fearful. I knew Brandi loved me and would never hurt me.
I’d have to give her lots of love and attention before racing her to retrieve my slippery metal bowl, and then shooing her away from the raw eggshells so she wouldn’t eat them and get sick. She’d run alongside me on my return trip, trying desperately to squeeze her nozzle in the gate’s way to keep me from shutting her out.
She was a good dog, Brandi. Fifteen years later I was shocked to learn, contrary to every memory and belief, Brandi was not my dog.
Photo by Todd Trapani
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