Two things that aren't real secret about me. I am compulsive and one of my favorite authors is Robert Fulgham. I start my consulting job next Wednesday. Being compulsive there is something about having a really clean house as I go off to work that just puts me in the right frame of mind. Yesterday, after two weeks of doctors appointments, business meetings, and celebrating my Mom's birthday I found the time to start the cleaning process. The way I clean it will take at least three days to do it properly unless I get sidetracked like I did yesterday. Then it may take a couple of months. As I started dusting a coffee table in the living room I found what my friend Larry calls a coffee table book. "All I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten" by the favorite Robert Fulgham. The cleaning stopped and the reading started. I laughed and cried at the collection of short stores in "All I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten." You will be touched when he writes of the trick or trick visitor he had right before Christmas dressed in a Santa suit. You will laugh until you cry when he writes about using battery cables to help a stalled motorist. I really don't have many requirements for the blog but I am instituting one requirement right now. Required reading for The Dahn Report is "All I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten." You can either check the book out at the local library or order it at the following website. On the website you can also check out some of Fulgham's daily writings. Since I also did my laundry yesterday I appreciated his writing about laundry. You can thank me after you read the book!
http://www.robertfulghum.com/
Do we really make life more difficult than it is? Did we really learn everything we need to know about ourselves and getting along with others before we even started grade school? Directly quoting the back of "All I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten:"
"Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK. "
Ironic or enlightening?
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8 comments:
All good advice, though I'm not sure I learned those points in kindergarten. Shoot, I don't even remember kindergarten. I read the book some years ago, but wouldn't mind reading it again. I'll try to remember to pick it up when I'm at the library tomorrow.
Do we make life more difficult than it has to be? Absolutely. Some of us more than others [she says guiltily].
I will have to get that book and read it....sounds like something I would love.
I do believe I learned a lot in Kindergarten as that is the best teacher I had through out my whole education and I even remember her name. Mrs. Rankin. And from your quotes, I think those are just the things I learned. So I can't wait to read the book.
Do we make life more difficult? I agree with Pat...Absolutely. Some a Whole LOT more than others. I even know a few of them who do...Not that I am one of them by no means.... ;)
Hi Pat
Make sure you get the current 15th anniversary one. He updated some of his stories for the new edition of AIKTKILIK.
That makes two of us guilty!!
Bill
Hi Dona
Check out some of his writings on his blog. What makes All I Needed To Know In Kindergarten a great book is it is a series of stories, some only one or two pages long. So you can quit anytime, you don't have to read it all in one sitting to find out how it turns out!
I remember my Kindergarten teachers name too, it was Mom. Damn that was hard!
I would never think you were one of those that made life difficult!
Bill
Like you, I'm a big Fulgham fan. And "I Leraned in Kindergarten" is on my bookshelf, beside his other books, "It was on FIre..." and "UhOh" and with Brody's "God on a Harley. All of them tend to put things in perspective, when I remember to pull one of them out and read a few pages. Haven't yet gone to his web page, but look forward to it. Mom wasn't my kindergarten teacher, but she and Daddy taught many of these lessons to us at early ages.
Dona, I suspect you'll thoroughly enjoy it. He writes with humor, so we can laugh at ourselves, while he laughs at himself in many cases.
Do we make life more difficult than it is? Some of us have a natural talent for it (wry s), a talent I'm now trying to dilute as much as possible, but a long-standing habit it's a challenge to break. (Not that I'd admit that to anyone but you guys, who've already figured it out.)
Thanks for the reminder of the book and the website, Bill. It's been some time since I've read his book(s).
Hi DR
I knew you were also a Fulgham fan. I love how he explained the "It Was On Fire When I Lay Down In It" title. Gosh if I could think and write like him!
My parents, like yours, also taught me a lot. Be kind, rewind in addition to the blog mentioned list!
Now I never would have suspected you as one who makes life more diffult that it is! However, I am glad both of have a natural talent!
As to the reminder, sometimes I really struggle for subjects to write about and then other times, like yesterday, they just jump up and smack me.
Bill
LOL. Bill, my dear, you've watched me create crisis after crisis, most of which aren't worth remembering a year later, let alone five years later. I figured you, of all people, knew I was among the "guilty," which is why I immediately fessed up (wry g>.
Hi DR
I was trying to keep you from confessing because if you confessed then I had to!
Bill
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