First Grade Ferocious

It was the most ferocious time of my life, I was angry all the time. Angry at breakfast. Angry during lunch. Angry at supper. I was angry because my teacher had a pact with my mom. I was to wear a mitt on my left hand for the year at school, so I could not use that "wrong hand". In the 50's that's how we "cured" left-handedness. That was sixty years ago, and I still remember that ugly gray mitt with the white strings that I could not take off. My mother made it, at Miss Kneefriend's urging. Miss Kneefriend indeed. Let me show Miss Kneefriend a knee. Anger takes away happy. Anger takes away reason. Anger takes away everything that makes a kid human. And I was never a human child in the first place. I was always ready to kill after first grade. Because I remember, and I knew myself, and I liked my left hand, and she was angry too.