Don't put rubber hip waders in an apartment clothes dryer, you will start a fire...

I have some memories from just before kindergarten, and during my kindergarten year.

Rubber boot

Living in an apartment in Illinois, seeing smoke out our apartment's third story window, looking down from balcony, smoke pouring out of laundry room. Found out later that some fool put rubber hip waders in dryer, and they caught on fire.

Image via Wikipedia

I also remember from Montessori kindergarten seeing a plasticine clay sculpture of a river bank, in a glass casserole dish. It was cool because they also used blue tinted water to show what part of the river bank was underwater. I went to touch it and hopefully add a tree, and I got chewed out by the teacher. I think it was a prop to show parents how stimulating their Montessori experience was. We never got to do anything so cool. I asked other kids about it, and they didn't know anything about it. What a gyp. I also remember being attacked by my own bed's comforter. I was alone in the apartment, and the bed comforter leaped off the bed and wrestled me to the ground. With the wisdom of age, I conjecture that this was, in fact, a stupid kid's dream. If I could go back in time and be my own big brother, I think my arms would grow weary from beating sense into my younger self's head. Hah! I remember trying to read "The Cat in the Hat" all by myself. I got stuck on the very first word "the". I pronounced it "TEE-HUH-EEE". When my mom told me that you couldn't always figure out words by just by sounding out the sounds of the letter, I completely lost interest in trying to learn to read by myself. Stupid kid.