Elvis Training Wheels
I don’t think I ever quite got the worth of Kindergarten. Back in 1956, pre-school hadn’t been created and kindergarten was the launching pad for your school years. Most of the kids in my class were discovering the wonders of their newfound social circle, while others were simply enthralled with their own boogers or the taste of white paste.
After careful examination of all the circumstances involved, I decided that kindergarten might hold some untapped value; the only question being what and how.
First of all, the teacher was well past the nurturing stage and into basic little-twerp management. So, there was nothing to be had there.
Secondly, 5 year olds are so random in there interests that I had a difficult time connecting with anybody. Why did I want or need to be there? You sat around all day dicking with insignificant whatnot and making a mess and I could do that at home. Really, nothing to be had there either.
Thirdly, my main mover, music, was commandeered by a dispassionate piano hack (hereafter referred to as Mrs. Piano Hack) who turned off her hearing aid every time she led us in song. My innate musicality found that approach highly offensive and I just wanted her to stop mauling the piano.
Finally, as a result of points one, two and three, I was painfully bored and needed a reason to hang in there long enough to make it to the 1st grade. That reason was to work on my performance skills and give my classmates a lift at the same time.
Most of the kids just banged around gormlessly but others brought their own specialties to the table. One little dweeb, Jimmy, liked to set fire to the boots in the coat closet using lighter fluid until Mrs. Piano Hack would see the smoke and have to douse the flames with a fire extinguisher. That was Jimmy’s go-to move and while temporarily exciting, the long-range consequences were potentially disastrous.
My go-to move was far less dangerous and, hopefully, a lot more memorable, although to Jimmy’s credit, burning boots are hard to forget. No, I decided that the one thing that was lacking in that boring classroom was good entertainment and I devised a plan to provide that.
The plan went thusly: At exactly the same time every day, Mrs. Piano Hack left the classroom to go down the hall to retrieve those little milk cartons for us on a metal tray. I could pretty much estimate how much time it would take for her to plod her way down there, stack the cartons and get back. As soon as she left I would leap on the table, air guitar in hand, and lay into a blistering rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog”. By the time I got halfway into the first verse all the kids were surrounding me, dancing and yelling as I swiveled my 5 year old hips and sang my ass off. The kids loved it and I made it a daily ritual, but there was one fatal flaw to the plan.
I had a hard time getting off stage and lingering too long on the table always led to Mrs. Piano Hack walking back in, grabbing me by the back of the shirt collar and tossing me into the hallway and its makeshift solitary confinement. I’d have to sit out there for long stretches until Mrs. Piano Hack figured I’d served my time and then she’d let me back in.
Actually, there was a flaw in her plan as well. I liked it in the hallway and I’d rather be there than in the classroom with all that chaos and bad piano playing. So, it was kind of a win, win for me because sitting out there allowed me ample time to let my mind wander and daydream all sorts of wacky things and it gave my imagination quite a workout. That imagination was atrophying in Hack’s classroom so the hallway was a blessing in disguise.
Periodically, my mother would be called down to the school to deal with my constant removals from the classroom and the first time she came to find me in the hallway, she said, “I’ll go down to the principal’s office and get you back into class”. I begged her not to do that and explained my reasoning for not wanting to return. Unfortunately, I was going to have to get back in the classroom or I was in danger of repeating kindergarten.
It was hard for me to believe that I had to go back to that soul killing kindergarten room but faced with another year of Mrs. Piano Hack, I lightened up my table show schedule and made it out of there at year’s end.
Kindergarten wasn’t a total waste because I learned some valuable lessons in show biz and public relations: size up your audience carefully and know when to stop basking in the glory and get off stage. When I finally became a professional musician, those revelations became useful in nearly every gig I’ve ever had.
Mrs. Piano Hack wasn’t much in the guidance department but her quest to squash my performance creativity helped give me that rock and roll edge.
Rock on, Mrs. Piano Hack!