I know I used to scare the crap out of my mom as an infant, by holding by breath when I didn't want to eat something (I was a picky eater from the get go), but that I loved plums. I know that my sister used to call me Wawie, and my parents would say, "No, Lau-rie," and she would respond, "Yeah, Wawie," and they'd laugh. I know that I attended playgroup (in home daycare) with a group of neighborhood kids who became my buddies in elementary school. I know my mom met my best friend's mom in the hospital because we were a week apart and my mom had to stay in the hospital because she had a C-section (that used to be a major thing). But all of these are memories given to me by my family. I don't actually have any memory of any of it. My husband on the otherhand recalls lying on a changing table at daycare and looking out the window to see his parents coming in to pick him up. Wow, that is a very early childhood memory!
What stuck with me as I rewound the days of my early childhood, was the part when Schneider asked, Can you remember when you were first aware of yourself as an individual person? Wow. When do I recall thinking of myself as an individual person. That's more than a vague memory, more than a story your parents tell about when you were little. I tried to get back there, and the earliest clear memory I could pull up with details, was when I was three or four years old and attending Beth HaGan nursery school at Temple Israel in Great Neck, Long Island where I grew up.
The building was large. Not like a school, dfferent. Wide space when you walked in the school side entrance, there were early childhood classrooms forward and all the way to the right before continuing through a threshhold into an open lobby area. That was where the grand entrance (shown above) was, and where the sanctuaries and ballrooms were. Religious school classrooms were immediately to the left. The doors were the way many of us remember old school doors to be, wooden with a glass window opening almost the entire top half of the door to glances from passersby.
The classroom in my memory is big, though this may be due to how small I was at the time. The wall opposite the door was mostly windows, maybe to the parking lot or a playground. This part I do not recollect. But the room, ah the room was filled from one end to the other with what might now be considered toys and play areas to the modern pre-school. But they were important parts of child development and learning to the nursery school of the 1970's (I'll make no commentary here about what was and what should be). An entire play kitchen equipped with miniature wooden appliances, cabinets, and counters- yes wood. Ne'er do I remember a single injury, not even a splinter. We somehow survived. There were dolls and puppets, dress-up costumes, hats, shoes, and jewelry. There were lots and lots of blocks, solid wood blocks.
The rugs were colorful, and they provided the perfect area to lay your blanket out at rest hour- it was never called naptime. Though I am unable to recall anything about the way she looked or sounded, I do remember an endearing Morah Doris (Morah, pronounced mo-rah, means teacher in Hebrew. Most preschool age children in the 70's who went out of the home for "school" did so at their church or temple. I went to my temple). I have many vague memories of my experience there, but two things stand out to me most about Beth HaGan (loosely translated, beth hagan means the youth house or home to the youth). The first is a phase my Morah went through, when almost daily during rest hour she would play a record of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. I cannot remember whether she read along with the record.
This version of Peter and the Wolf was very popular during the time period.
To be honest, she didn't need to read the story, the music said it all. Even as a three or four year old, I knew the sound of the French horns. It was the intimidating and ominous sound of the wolf coming in and out of the story, and it terrified me! I would bury my head in my satiny ice blue blanket squeezing my eyes tight, waiting for it to end. Waiting for the flute to indicate the birds were back, or the violins that played when Peter was strolling along. I never told anyone. I never cried. I cannot recall if I would eventually doze into a nap or just ride it out, lying there awake and uncomfortable. But I can picture the record player. It was common in schools up through the 80's. It was a dark gray box-like model, where all of the parts were contained in the bottom, and a shallow lid would be taken off in order to play the records. The lid could be placed back on and secured with a buckle snap lock, and moved around from one outlet to another because the speaker was contained in the box. I miss the sound of crackling records, maybe not Peter and the Wolf specifically, but records in general. Even today though, hearing that piece even from a world renowned symphony, demonstrates for me the power of music to transcend space and time and place you back into a memory. It brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes.
The second memory I have of Beth HaGan is Friday mornings. Friday at sundown is Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath. Every Friday morning in nursery school we would each braid and make our very own individual challahs. Golden challah, egg bread, a staple at Jewish holiday and Sabbath dinner tables (except during Passover). At Beth HaGan we got to make our own. Morah would issue each of us a sheet of wax paper on which she would then place a blob of dough about the size of an adult fist. We would divide our dough into three parts and roll each part into snakes, equal in length. Then we would lay two snakes out from a point like sides of a triangle, one tip pressed on top of the other, and add the third one down the center with the tip pressed over the other two. The memory is so clear, I can smell the yeasty dough. FInally, we would braid the three pieces, over and under, all the way down to create the traditional Jewish challah. Morah Doris would then take them away on a tray and bake them. Before we were picked up from school at about noon, we were given our tiny loaves of challah to take home for Shabbat, some smaller than others because kids would always nip at the dough for tiny tastes.
A full-size traditional challah.
Beth HaGan at temple Israel was the place I started so many things-my education both secular and religious, an understanding of my culture, friendships that would be an important part of my childhood. I remember attending children's services on Shabbat and during holidays. I also remember all kinds of special musical programs and events. I became a Bat Mitzvah at this same temple about 10 years after this memory, just before my 13th birthday.
My mom, sister, and me at a children's Shabbat service. Mom is lighting the Shabbat candles.
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