The Grasshopper

Preface: This is a piece I wrote right before Nicholas was starting kindergarten (2004) at Middlebury Elementary School. Now he's in fifth grade and about to graduate, I thought I would reprise it. A handful of you may have already read it.

The Grasshopper

It was moving time. We sold our house and bought a new one about three miles away. Our family is growing you know. We called the movers, packed the boxes, swept the floors and left nothing but memories. Actually we took those with us. With the house empty I did one last melancholy walk-through. A melodramatic father on the verge of tears meandering through the only house my boys had ever known. A rapid fire 8mm family movie scrolled across my mind: late night feedings, Winnie the Pooh Halloween costumes, Christmas mornings…

Then I began thinking about the new people who would be moving into our house and changing everything around, just as we had done. I gravitated to the room of my five year old, Nicholas. The room I had painstakingly painted; Nicholas’ favorite color blue and then we stamped little yellow moons and stars all over the walls. This was the signature room of our first house, the room where Nicholas and Brian, my three year old, spent so much of their time.

I stood in the room wondering, Will Nicholas and Brian remember this room? What memories will they have from this house? Will Brian, the three year old, remember anything?

I left what we now call “the Arden Road house” (Waterbury, CT) for the last time. In the car on the way to our new house, about 3 miles away in Middlebury, I realized there was a Spinner family circularity to the move. My parents had moved into a new house on East 4th Street when I was 5 and entering Kindergarten, just like Nicholas. I was worried about how the move would affect my boys, I felt like I was tearing their world apart. So I took some comfort in the fact that I moved when I was five and everything turned out okay. I reminisced about my first house:

• Walks along Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton Parkway to go food shopping with my mom and four your old sister. A mom, her two kids and a squeaky wheeled shopping cart

• Slices of Boar’s Head baloney passed across the counter to eagerly awaiting hands by Patsy our neighborhood butcher

The timing of the move made me keenly aware in everything we did that Nicholas just might remember this. Many of us have memories from that time in our life, right? Our Saturday morning ritual trip to Ami’s Bagels just might be something Nick remembers for the rest of his life. What he actually will remember I don’t know and I can’t control. I do know that I want his to be pleasant memories, like mine.

In the midst of all of the chaos of moving my wife Kira and I took Nicholas to kindergarten orientation. Pulling into the parking lot at Middlebury Elementary School, I’m thinking, What a quintessential American scene: Mini-Vans and SUV’s, moms, dads, boys and girls partaking in this right of passage...first day at the new school.

For the first time in three years, Nicholas, the oldest of three boys, has his parent’s undivided attention. He revels in holding both of our hands as we amble toward the building. And my mind’s working…I wonder what’s going through his mind? I envision that he must be anxious and I want to ease his fears when I spy this copper weather vane in the shape of a grasshopper atop one of the buildings. “Hey Nick look a grasshopper!” I say. Which leads to the futile search and frustration. “Up there. No by that tree.” “But DAAAD I can’t see it!” I have not gotten it through my thick skull that kids can’t follow directions to something as noticeable as a metal grasshopper. Eventually, he saw it.

Walking into the school I have this epiphany, This will be one of Nick’s memories! I was sure of it. Shortly thereafter I sat in the cafeteria, scrunched into one of the seats as the principal drones on about bus schedules and healthy snacks and I build a scenario in my head. I jot down some thoughts on a napkin. That night I write a story in my journal…

In this story, the weather vane grasshopper from that first day comes to mean so much. On Nick’s first real day of kindergarten he’s scared and alone as the big yellow bus pulls into the school loop. As the building looms in the foreground Nick spies the grasshopper, our grasshopper. He remembers that day, just a week before, when he walked hand-in-hand with his mom and dad into the building and he feels better.

In my glance into the future, Nick is a second grader on a raw and rainy November morning sitting in the nurse’s office with the sniffles, waiting for his mom to come pick him up. As he rests his head on the cold window he stares up at the gray sky and picks out our grasshopper. And little second grade Nicholas smiles and feels secure, knowing his parents love him and that his mommy is coming to get him. I know it’s sappy but just stay with me.

Fourth grade arrives and in my forward reverie Nicholas is out on the soccer field during gym. As the action moves to the other end of the field, he daydreams halfheartedly, pawing at a butterfly fluttering by. As he follows the butterfly’s flight up into the sky his eyes catch the grasshopper, our grasshopper. And he thinks, Wow there’s the metal grasshopper from my first day here. I’ve been here at Middlebury Elementary School a long time and what a great time I’ve been having.

Then we are all dressed up for 5th grade graduation. My prepubescent 11 year old is clinging to his childhood as the world around him and biology conspire to rush him toward the scary world of the Middle School. Dun-Dun-Dun. On this sunny June day, six years in the future, Nick is surrounded by his friends, goofing around during the ceremony as the principal drones on about hope for the future and hard work… Nick begins to reminisce about his time at MES, as he leans back in his metal folding chair his eyes catch the grasshopper. He thinks about what a long time ago it was that he first saw it on that August day many years ago.

Finally, my story coming to an end, we are heading to the parking lot surrounded by parents and students celebrating. Nick is between his parents once again, not holding hands this time, as that wouldn’t be cool. As we pass the now mythical grasshopper Nick glances at me for a second, gives me a knowing look before he turns to his youngest brother, Charley, who is starting his MES career and says, “Hey Charlie you see that grasshopper up there. That’s a very special grasshopper.”

I read this fictitious story from my journal to my wife and Nicholas the night before his first day of Kindergarten. Kira and I were blubbering, sniffling idiots as I read it. We looked at each other and then at Nick when I finished, eager to see his reaction. He stared at me for a second, tilted his head and said, “Daddy. What grasshopper?”

By the time we stopped laughing I thought, I don’t know what my son’s memories will be. Obviously not the same as I envision but I am keenly aware that these memories are forming now and I only hope they can be as good as I imagined.


Post Script: Now Nick is graduating, I know he enjoyed his time at MES. Special thanks to all the Middlebury Elementary School staff for helping mold our life long learners.