I worked for 20 years in different elementary schools. In every school the kindergarten teachers, and some first grade teachers befriended me. They would ask me to eat lunch with them and to sit by them in meetings.
A few times some of the teachers made comments to me.
“Tony, you were never nurtured as a child. You need someone to nurture you.”
“Tony, you were the little boy that no one loved. I can tell that by looking at you.”
Those kindergarten teachers had the knack of spotting a child who lacked love. Their keen skills continued for a grown-up boy like me.
The following story my father told me many times.
He would come home and see my mother in our boat or sunbathing on our dock on Muskego Lake. As he walked down the hill toward her, he would hear me in the house crying while I looked out the window.
My father would stop and hesitate. She would yell at him and scold him. “Don’t look at him,” she insisted. “If you ignore him, he will eventually stop crying.”
He said it broke his heart to ignore me. However, my father didn’t have the balls to disobey my mother. His philosophy was, “Happy wife, Happy life.” That didn’t work out for him.
I remember a bed with rails on it to keep me in during the day. She must have used that in the winter when it was too cold for her to sunbathe.
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The profile photo is from the 1960s franchised TV show, Romper Room School. TV stations around the country produced their own edition of the show each with a different teacher.
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