Mrs. McGregor
One day in Austin I was with Mother and Dad who were shopping at some outdoor market place on a sidewalk where there were stalls covered with awnings. They sold fruits and vegetables and other things there. There were also regular small stores involved. Suddenly I broke out with a big smile and shouted, “There’s Mrs. McGregor!” And, it really was. Mother recognized her, and we got together for a brief, but very meaningful visit with her.
Mrs. McGregor had been my kindergarten teacher when we lived in Waco on McFerrin. I think my kindergarten was at the Baptist church near our home. I loved Mrs. McGregor dearly. She was good to everone in my class. She taught us to cut and paste paper, making picutes. She taught us to play a game about finding a thimble or an empty spool or some other object by playing “I spy” or “hot or cold”. Somehow she made whatever we did to be very exciting, teaching us a principle of some kind with everything we did. Whenever someone spotted the item in question, everyone shouted with glee rather than being envious. That was how she taught us to be. She really had a lot of common sense in teaching, and I remember her as a teacher who really cared for each child in the class. We also learned some numbers, colors, and what some letters said. We sang a lot of songs and played musical chairs. She didn’t try to quell our being noisy when we were having so much fun. We played games so fast that winning and losing were not a big factor. The main thing was to just start a new game with new winners and losers, and losing was just not a factor, because eventually everyone won. I think that some of what I learned in kindergarten carried over to when I was a teacher a quarter of a century later. Mainly, that there’s no substitute for fairness in whatever you do.