Early Childhood Memories - 08 April 2026

1950. Kindergarten, Wasatch Elementary School, Provo, Utah:

Some older boys took me aside and told me there was no Santa Clause. I have a vivid recollection of the event... outside the school main entrance, the color of the school's bricks being a yellowish tan, the afternoon sun's oblique rays glinting on south facing school windows. On returning home, I told Mom about the sinister revelation of those ignoble kids, and she reluctantly, lovingly, confirmed the unthinkable.

I had to walk about a half mile from home to Wasatch Elementary. Half of that walk was across a field of one to two feet high grass. There was a blazed path through the grass. I would often walk to and from school with neighbor Marilyn L., also kindergartener, five years old. Marilyn's and my parents were also good friends. Once, on the way home from school, beside the trail, in the taller grass, Marilyn and I had an "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" experience. I can't remember who first came up with the idea. But it was likely Marilyn, since we all know that it was Eve who tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, and not the other way around. Wily women. Can they ever be trusted? I wonder where Marilyn is now?

Though my growing up was mainly Utah centered, I can truthfully say that I am a product of NYC public schools. I attended PS31, First Grade, Bayside, Queens during the 1951/52 school year. Dad was completing his PhD at NYU. My memory flashes with images of subways, watching Howdy Doody on a black and white TV at my friend Walter's house, and Dad buying me a New York Yankees baseball cap.

Once, at school, during show and tell, I told the class that our family had visited the Statue of Liberty the previous weekend. The teacher asked for a show of hands of those kids who had also visited the Statue of Liberty. Not one hand was raised. I've seen this phenomenon many times since in my travels to over one hundred thirty countries. There are people who live in Agra who haven't seen the Taj Mahal. As a Mormon missionary in Charente Maritime Department France in 1966, I engaged with elderly rural dwellers who had never been to Paris less than three hundred miles distant.

At PS 31 we wore dog tags and did "under the desk" drills in case of atomic bomb attack. We said the pledge of allegiance at the start of class and said, in unison, "Good morning Mrs. (teachers name) when she entered the room.

Out of at least more than 25 students, there was a sole black girl in the class... no other blacks, boys or girls, in the class. This is my first memory of knowing, or at least being aware of, a black person. She was slightly built and seemed very shy. Once, before class, or during recess, two or three boys teased her. While she was distracted, I witnessed another boy stealing cookies from her lunch pail. I don't blame myself for not stepping up on the girl's behalf. I was six years old. It was all so strange to me at that age. Still, this memory has troubled me throughout my life.

Margaret and I recently watched 2026 Best Picture Academy Award nominated picture, "Train Dreams." In the WWI era film, set in northern Idaho and Eastern Washington state, three white railroad workers throw a Chinese railroad worker off a bridge for no other reason than racial discrimination. The film's main character, Robert Grainier, a white co-worker, witnessed the act. Grainier, a timid, quiet man, stayed out of it. But, like me witnessing the harassing of the black girl at PS31, Grainier was troubled by the event. Throughout the rest of his life, Grainer had bad dreams about the discriminatory act. Watching this film revived memory of the event at PS 31, Bayside Queens, 1951.