All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (2 page)

T
HE
R
EST OF THE
S
TORY

“A
ND SO THEN WHAT HAPPENED?”

An urgent question out of the bedtime darkness, asked by my children, when they and I were young. Just when I thought I had slam-dunked a story ending—just when I was certain the children were safely in the arms of the sandman—a small, sleepy voice would plead, “So, then what happened?” And no matter what I replied, the plea went on, “Please, please, Daddy—tell the rest of the story.”

In cranky desperation, I would resort to apocalypse: “Suddenly a comet hit the earth and blew everything to pieces.”

Silence. “What happened to the pieces?”

“It doesn’t matter. Everybody died a horrible death, especially all the little children who were not asleep.” I also tried, “The father sold all the children who would not go to sleep to a passing gypsy who ground them into sausage meat. The first children to be ground up were those who would not stop asking questions.”

Go ahead, shame me. But it worked. Most of the time. On reflection, I suspect such gory endings were what they really liked most. Perhaps it was a scheme to see just how far I would go—to see how crazed their father really was.

Now I am dealing with grandchildren who have the same restless minds. I am wilier now than I used to be. To the inevitable request for more, I reply, “Only your father knows the rest of the story. Ask him to finish it when you get home.”

The children are right to ask, of course. As long as life exists, something always happens next. There are always consequences—always sequels.

Anticipating future bedtime insistence, I’ve been reviewing my repertoire of stories. And I must say I wonder myself what did happen next?

After the la-di-da with Little Red Riding Hood, did the word get passed among wolves to stay away from smarty-pants little girls who are magnets for trouble? And how come Red’s bed-ridden grandma was living way off in the woods alone instead of in a retirement community or a nursing home?

How about Alice? Could she find her way back into Wonderland in middle age when she could really have used a little excitement in her life? Of course not. Whenever she approached a looking glass, she touched up her makeup.

After the blind men examined the elephant and came back to the king with their paradoxical impressions, did they pool their contradictions and re-examine the elephant? Don’t bet on it. They’d rather have their heads cut off than give up their prejudices. The wise man who had grabbed the tail insisted, “An elephant is like a rope. Everybody else is wrong.” The wise man in the middle declared, “No, an elephant is like four tree trunks. Everybody else is wrong.” And the wise man who encountered the trunk insisted the elephant was a hose—period.

Could Snow White really live happily ever after when the prince knew she had been living with seven little men for some time? No way. He’d always bring it up when they had a family fight. “What did you really
do
with all those little men?”

And Cinderella couldn’t have lived too happily with a prince who couldn’t recognize her unless she was wearing the right slippers.

Remember the story of the emperor’s new clothes? The emperor had been duped by a tailor into believing that the clothes he made were so magnificent that only the pure of heart could wear them. When the emperor strutted his stuff in the non-existent clothes, a kid said what everybody could plainly see: “The emperor is stark naked.” What happened to that kid? He was hauled off home and sent to bed without his supper for being a big mouth and making trouble for his family.

The kid had always been told: “Be truthful, speak your mind, be true to yourself and have the courage of your convictions.” But the kid found out the hard way what the real rules were: “Don’t make waves, keep your mouth shut, cover your butt, don’t be a hero and mind your own business.” Whistle-blowers, like girls who marry a prince, do not live happily ever after. The kid wrestled with this reality as long as he lived.

OK, call me old and cynical. Go on, treat me like the parents treated the kid who called the emperor naked. Tell me I should be like the blind men and not rearrange my stories in the face of further information.

Maybe I know too much and have lived too long. Better I leave truth out of bedtime stories or pass the buck to their parents. It’s too soon to tell them the world is not always nice or fair. Children will find out the rest of the story on their own. Soon enough, there will be sleepless nights when “What will happen next?” will not be a plot inquiry but the entreaty of prayer.

S
PIDERS

T
HIS IS MY NEIGHBOR.
Nice lady. Coming out her front door, on her way to work and in her “looking good” mode. She’s locking the door now and picking up her daily luggage: purse, lunch bag, gym bag for aerobics, and the garbage bucket to take out. She turns, sees me, gives me the big, smiling Hello, takes three steps across her front porch. And goes “AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
(That’s a direct quote.)
At about the level of a fire engine at full cry.

Spider web! She has walked full force into a spider web. And the pressing question, of course: Just where is the spider
now
?

She flings her baggage in all directions. And at the same time does a high-kick, jitterbug sort of dance—like a mating stork in crazed heat. Clutches at her face and hair and goes “AAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” at a new level of intensity. Tries opening the front door without unlocking it. Tries again. Breaks key in the lock. Runs around the house headed for the back door. Doppler effect of

“A A A A A G G G H H H H a a g g h . . .”

Now a different view of this scene. Here is the spider. Rather ordinary, medium gray, middle-aged lady spider. She’s been up since before dawn working on her web, and all is well. Nice day, no wind, dew point just right to keep things sticky. She’s out checking the moorings and thinking about the little gnats she’d like to have for breakfast. Feeling good. Ready for action. All of a sudden all hell breaks loose—earthquake, tornado, volcano. The web is torn loose and is wrapped around a frenzied moving haystack, and a huge piece of raw-but-painted meat is making a sound the spider has never heard: “AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!”

It’s too big to wrap up and eat later, and it’s moving too much to hold down.

Jump for it? Hang on and hope? Dig in?

Human being. The spider has caught a human being. And the pressing question is, of course: Where is it going and what will it do when it gets there?

The neighbor lady thinks the spider is about the size of a lobster and has big rubber lips and poisonous fangs. The neighbor lady will probably strip to the skin and take a full shower and shampoo just to make sure it’s gone—and then put on a whole new outfit to make certain she is not inhabited.

The spider? Well, if she survives all this, she will
really
have something to talk about—the one that got away that was THIS BIG. “And you should have seen the JAWS on the thing!”

Spiders. Amazing creatures. Been around maybe 350 million years, so they can cope with about anything. Lots of them, too—sixty or seventy thousand per suburban acre. Yes. It’s the web thing that I envy. Imagine what it would be like if people were equipped like spiders. If we had this little six-nozzled aperture right at the base of our spine and we could make yards of something like glass fiber with it. Wrapping packages would be a cinch! Mountain climbing would never be the same. Think of the Olympic events. And mating and child rearing would take on new dimensions. Well, you take it from there. It boggles the mind. Cleaning up human-sized webs would be a mess, on the other hand.

All this reminds me of a song I know. And you know, too. And your parents and your children, they know. About the itsy-bitsy spider. Went up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again. You probably know the motions, too.

What’s the deal here? Why do we all know that song? Why do we keep passing it on to our kids? Especially when it puts spiders in such a favorable light? Nobody goes “AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” when they sing it. Maybe because it puts the life adventure in such clear and simple terms. The small creature is alive and looks for adventure. Here’s the drainpipe—a long tunnel going up toward some light. The spider doesn’t even think about it—just goes. Disaster befalls it—rain, flood, powerful forces. And the spider is knocked down and out beyond where it started. Does the spider say, “To hell with that”? No. Sun comes out—clears things up—dries off the spider. And the small creature goes over to the drainpipe and looks up and thinks it
really
wants to know what is up there. It’s a little wiser now—checks the sky first, looks for better toeholds, says a spider prayer, and heads up through mystery toward the light and wherever.

Living things have been doing just that for a long, long time. Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe. We are survivors. And we teach our kids about that. And maybe spiders tell their kids about it, too, in their spider way.

So the neighbor lady will survive and be a little wiser coming out the door on her way to work. And the spider, if it lives, will do likewise. And if not, well, there are lots more spiders, and the word gets around. Especially when the word is “AAAAAAA GGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

Often, when speaking in public, I begin by saying I will silently sing. As a clue to what’s going on in my mind, I explain, I will make some motions with my hands. I ask the audience to help me out by doing the same thing when they understand what’s going on. It’s the spider song, of course. I have great memories of rooms full of people silently singing the itsy-bitsy spider, while doing the motions, and grinning. They always grin. They always applaud themselves at the end.

Did you know that you can sing the words to the itsy bitsy spider to the tune of the “Ode to Joy” portion of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony? With some minor adjustments it works. You might call the combination the fight song of the human race. I once got a thousand people to do it, motions and all.

Both pieces of music are about the same thing: the capacity of life to triumph over adversity—about perseverance in adventure, for spiders and people.

P
UDDLES

I
T’S
M
AY IN
C
ENTRAL
P
ARK
in New York City. An afternoon shower followed by seductive spring sunshine lures busy people off sidewalks and onto park benches. At 80th Street and Fifth Avenue there’s a path into the park, on which the rain has left an obstacle course of puddles.

A small child, kitted out in full raingear, runs splashing through a puddle, “YAAAAAAAAHHH.” His mother, likewise rain-proofed, runs after him, shouting, “NO. NO. NO.” Catching his hand, she pulls him back onto dry land and barks sternly: “NO PUDDLES, Jacob. I told you: NO PUDDLES.”

The child strains outward and away from her like a guy wire from a tent in a windstorm. He whines. The mother pulls him further away down the path. The child upshifts into a wail. The mother tries to pick him up. The child goes limp and screams. It’s a stand-off. A child-in-the-checkout-line-at-the-supermarket deal. And this kid is a black-belt screamer: “WHOOOAAAOOOYAAAA.” The mother is embarrassed. People are staring.
(“What did she do to him?”)

A well-dressed middle-aged man observes from a nearby bench. He’s wearing polished black leather wing-tipped shoes. Between him and the mother-and-child hoo-ha is a large puddle. The man stands. Walks deliberately into the puddle, wing-tips and all. Grins. Shouts, “HEY-HEY-HEY.” Mother and child look up. The kid goes silent, stands still.

This scene is too good to be true. How can I stay out of this? I get up off my bench and walk into the puddle to stand beside the grinning man. I’m wearing serious leather sandals and socks. I grin at the man and the mom and the kid. A fashionably dressed young woman takes off her shoes and joins us, as does her dog.

The kid laughs, lets go of his mom’s hand, and marches into the puddle.

All eyes are on the mom.

Now at center stage, the mom wears an expression of pained pleasure. She’s caught again in a parenthood paradox. On the one hand, the child must learn to mind. But, then, what harm can a puddle do if the kid is wearing rain boots? She doesn’t want him to get sick. But of course everybody knows you catch colds from germs on other peoples’ hands, not from puddles. It’s hard to back down when you’ve said “NO!” But it’s not wrong to change your mind. She doesn’t want her child to follow the example of strangers. But all these three people have done is to stand in the puddle and grin at her. How can so much be at stake over such a small event? What’s a good mother to do?

Being a parent always involves some hypocrisy. If she were a kid, she’d be in the puddle now. She walked in puddles when she was a child and came to no harm. Her mom probably shouted “NO PUDDLES” at her, too. Does parenthood always mean being driven by the autopilot of the past?

All this races through the mom’s mind in nanoseconds.

The waders and watchers are waiting. She can’t stand there forever.

The mom smiles. Laughs. Walks into the puddle. Her audience applauds.

The waders shake her hand, shake each other’s hands and go their ways.

The child has a pleased-but-stupefied look on his face.

Adults are weird. He will not understand how weird until he is one.

So, you may ask, did this really happen?

Well, yes and no. The day and the park and the puddle were real. The small cast assembled in this little arena was there. And the inclinations we all had were right and true. But, in fact, the mother pulled the kid off down the path, still barking “NO PUDDLES” at him, and leaving the rest of us grumpily minding our own business. Still, it
might
have happened. It
should
have happened. Puddles are there as a test about staying young as long as you can. All the adults there that day failed the test.

How I hated walking away thinking, as I have so many times in my life, that next time or when I have time or when circumstances are just right I will do what my heart says to do. Sometimes acting foolish and being wise are the same.

Later that afternoon I went back to do what I knew I should have done.

Too late. Too late.

Mother and child and nice people and puddle and opportunity had gone.