I couldn’t put my finger on it, when one of my friends threw me a beach ball, but I felt something, something that I needed to explore. I’m not one who searches for such things, but some of the times they find us. The texture of that beach ball felt so unusual that I looked down at it. It was fresh out of the package, and I thought the reason I never noticed the texture of a beach ball before was that I never handled one fresh out of the package before. I threw the ball to my friends without thinking too much about it. When it finally made its way back around to me, I caught it near my face. I accidentally caught a huge whiff of the beach ball, and that unique scent put me back, somewhere. I couldn’t put my finger on it when I put my finger on it.

The beach ball also felt naughty to scrunch, and I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the sound of the scrunching or the feel of it, but I knew I wanted to keep doing it. 

“What are you doing, throw it,” my friends yelled. I knew scrunching was weird, and I knew if I kept doing it, they’d start talking. “You think he’s normal? I once saw him scrunch a beach ball for about two minutes straight with a look on his face that I’ll never forget. That boy ain’t right.” I saw those impressions starting to form on the faces of my good friends, and I knew I should’ve snapped out of it, but I just couldn’t stop searching for the connection.

“C’mon, throw it!” my friends finally shouted from the pool, snapping me out of it.

I probably should’ve obsessed over it for a little longer, when it was fresh in the mind, but I didn’t. I decided to return to the normal and enjoy the rest of my day at the pool, because I learned it does no good to press and obsess over issues like these, because when they’re gone they’re just gone. Trying to retrieve them is basically pointless. I don’t know how long it took me, decades at least, to remember that this unusual connection I had with the material of a beach ball harkened back to the days I first met The Letter People.

***

“We’re not to touch The Letter People!” our real teacher, a Mrs. Chamberlain, informed us when she introduced us to the first Letter Person we met, a Mr. M. “We’re going to learn a lot about The Letter People throughout the year, and we’re going to learn a lot from them. They will become our friends, but we are not to touch them!” I didn’t know what Mr. M had going on, or what this was all about, but I was all into it.

By the time Mrs. Chamberlain introduced us to the second character, a Mr. T, I recognized the developing routine. We were going to meet a new character at regular intervals, but I couldn’t figure out how regular. The second introduction wasn’t as overwhelming as the first, but I found so much comfort in this routine that I no longer cried when my mother left me to the charge of Mrs. Chamberlain.

By the time we moved past those introductory characters, I began to move past the idea that they were teaching tools, and I began to think The Letter People visited us from another land, a Middle Earth of sorts, similar to the land J.R.R. Tolkien later introduced me to in The Hobbit. 

I’ve never been great at waiting, but it’s been reported that I was horrible at it before I learned how to tell time. After teaching me that my mom taught me how to mark the passage of time with ‘X’s on calendar, so I wouldn’t bother her so much about how many days away my expected days were. When I began anticipating the day of arrival of the next Letter Person in the same miserable manner I did other hallowed days, my mom had a word with Mrs. Chamberlain, and we found out that Mondays were the new hallowed days in my life, and I would ‘X’ my way to Mondays.

I eagerly anticipated the day of introduction for each Letter Person, but to be quite honest most of them didn’t have the star power, the it factor, that Mr. M and Mr. T had. I realized, on some level, that the rest of them were just learning tools for kindergarten kids who needed to learn the various uses of the alphabet in our language. I might overestimate how advanced I was in kindergarten, but my mom was such an active parent that most of what my kindergarten peers were learning for the first time was retread for me. Whatever the case was, I was a little bored by the routine of The Letter People for a time, as the routine of school sapped some of their magic in the months that followed, until I met Mr. Q.

***

I still remember the day I met Mr. Q for the first time. He stood on the right side of the entrance with our new substitute teacher, a Miss Landow, as she stood in her usual spot welcoming us to class for the day. “We’re not to touch Mr. Q,” she reminded me, as she seemed to sense that I was going to try to establish a greater connection with him. I obeyed, but I no longer viewed Miss Landow as a host, greeting us for the day. I viewed her as a sentry obstructing our ability to form a complete sensorial connection with him, and I resented her for it. 

Mr. Q felt rarely used, mostly ignored, and an underdog who is often misunderstood. Mr. Q felt like an avant-garde phoneme, before I knew what avant-garde and phoneme meant. He wasn’t the last Letter Person I met, and I don’t know if I knew all this, or sensed it, but I remember feeling a special connection to Mr. Q based on the subtle idea that no one else connected to him the way they did the other Letter People. 

Mr. Q was quiet. His special feature/superpower was silence. As my mother could surely attest, I never considered being quiet before, and I never met anyone who operated in silence before I met Mr. Q. The concept was so foreign to me that I decided to try it out.

“What’s wrong?” my mom asked me. “You’re so quiet.” I don’t remember if that question validated my new existence, if it emboldened me to pursue the idea of silence, or if I thought I was really onto something, but I loved the power of silence in those moments.  

As opposed to the other Letter People, Mr. Q silently observed the people, places and things around him, and when he did eventually speak, it proved powerful. I never heard the word philosophical, much less philosophical concept, but I found this idea of operating on an entirely different plane than everyone else intoxicating. I focused on the idea that just because everyone was talking, it didn’t mean I had to add my two cents. Some of the times, I imagined Mr. Q saying, there’s more power in silence. I found that cryptic and mysterious, even a little ironic, and possibly unstable.  

***

I’ve had an unusual, almost spiritual connection to “something different” for so long that until I remembered my association with Mr. Q, I didn’t think it had a point of origin. It doesn’t matter what genre it is in music, movies, or books, if it falls under the heading “something different”, I’ll at least give it a crack, probably develop a crush, if the author successfully manages the tightrope between developing something organically different and writing something that is different for the sake of being different, I’ll probably fall madly in love. My obsession with something different may have started before The Letter People, but I don’t remember that far back. I only remember that knowing that when I was going to new Letter Person, it made the idea that I could no longer spend every waking hour with my mom a little easier. I actually looked forward to going to school just to meet these new characters.

I tried to get to know more about them than anyone else did, to increase my level of familiarity, but there wasn’t more to know. Knowing this made me feel so limited. There’s nothing to figure out about blowup dolls, and I know that now, but as a six-year-old kid these mysterious figures called out to me. They wanted to get to know me as much as I wanted to get to know them. Our kindergarten, class photo showed all the students and teachers saying cheese and smiling for the camera, but I was smiling at The Letter People near me.

Beagles have ways of making foreign objects talk to them. They sniff and sometimes inhale them so deeply that they end up sneezing twelve times in a row. When their powerful sense of smell doesn’t help them understand a foreign object any better, they try eating it, urinating on it, or attempting to procreate with it. When dogs fail to arrive at some form of greater understanding of its purpose, they move on (Jack Russell Terriers and Beagles excepted). Their motto is “Try, try and try again, and then move on. No sense making a fool out of yourself.” I was not/am not wired that way. My obsessive brain does not let things go, for better and worse, and I obsessed over these mysterious figures called The Letter People.

When I couldn’t further my individual definition of the essence of these Letter People from afar, I wanted to touch them and play with them to learn everything I could about them. I wanted to be their friends and spend time with them to get to know them better, but we couldn’t touch them.

As nice and sweet as Mrs. Chamberlain was, her, “They’re not toys, and we’re not to touch them” carried some weight with us. She either had an authoritative way about her, or her beauty and demeanor granted her authority. I write the latter in association with psychological studies that suggest kids, even as young as five and six, behave better when their teacher is young and beautiful, because they want to be her. Mrs. Chamberlain had those qualities, and she spoke in an ethereal tone that reminded us of Glenda the Good Witch. Whatever the case was, when Mrs. Chamberlain laid down the law, we listened.

My guess is that Miss Chamberlain and the school administrators developed their “No touching” rule based on precedent, because kindergarten kids can’t stop. Again, my memory serves me well, because it reminds me that I was far more intelligent than my peers, and I was so bored that I ventured out, and my guess is they probably developed their “No touching” rule for kids like me who couldn’t stop. Yet, depriving me of the sense of touch only elevated the mystique of these characters, as I realized I would need to find other ways to learn more about them.

By the time we met Mr. F, Mrs. Chamberlain was no longer our teacher. She got pregnant, and I didn’t know what that meant, but I learned that being pregnant meant she was going to be gone for the rest of the year.

“Does that mean she’ll be gone for a while?” I asked my mom through tears.

“No, she’ll probably be gone for the rest of the year,” my mom said, and I assume she used more compassionate words to try to somehow soften the crushing blow for me.

A Miss Landow stepped in her place, and Miss Landow was a less attractive, more authoritative woman. Miss Landow informed us that Mrs. Chamberlain’s “No touching” rule for The Letter People would be upheld, and she meant that in no uncertain terms. Miss Landow, however, did not have the leadership mystique Mrs. Chamberlain did. 

I don’t know if this happened on Miss Landow’s first day on the job, or first week, but Tommy Spenceri decided to challenge her edict. Either that, or he didn’t have the patience I did to work through his progressions. Whatever the case was, Tommy could no longer abide by the “No touching” policy when we met Mr. F, and his floppy feet. He rushed to the front of the classroom to employ what a defensive tackle in football would call a bull rush, and he knocked Mr. F off his floppy feet. He hit Mr. F square, drove him onto his back and popped him. Nobody screamed that I remember, but I was on the verge of it. Tommy ruined Mr. F before I got to know the man, and Tommy deprived me of developing whatever relationship I might have developed with Mr. F. 

Tommy Spenceri was six, I know what that means now, but back then I considered his flagrant violation of protocol so horrendous that I couldn’t look at Tommy without disdain for his inability to restrain his primal impulses. When Mr. F returned, the next day, his hole was taped to help him retain air pressure, but I couldn’t look at him, because he appeared weak to me, tainted as it were, and I had no respect for him. It’s a bit callous I know, but how many six-year-olds know anything about the complex emotion of sympathy?

The one thing that Tommy’s impulsive act taught me was the concept of moderation. I was never going to commit what I considered a flagrant violation of protocol as horrendous as he did, but with Mrs. Chamberlain gone, her leadership mystique went with her, and to my six-year-old mind, that opened a window of opportunity. I don’t remember the exact timeline involved here, but at some point I conspired with my younger brother, a heist of a Letter Person. I wasn’t sure which Letter Person I would steal, or if I would steal all of them. I had favorites, but I didn’t want to play favorites. I didn’t want to leave a man behind, so my plan broadened out to stealing two of them, to three, to however many I could grab. I was not the type of kid who stole things, and I considered the whole idea shocking. I also knew how shocked and disappointed my authority figures and my mom would be if I was caught. Yet, I was so obsessed The Letter People that it grew into something some might characterize as unhealthy, even for a kindergarten-aged child.

I was disappointed that Miss Landow, and the powers that be, didn’t punish Tommy as severely as I thought they should’ve. They gave him what they called a “stern talking to”. Tommy violated the sanctity of The Letter People, and their primary “no touching” rule, and all they gave him was a “stern talking to”? Tommy maintained his smug smile throughout this “stern talking to”, and I watched it all thinking that they weren’t do enough to protect The Letter People.

When I began plotting and planning this heist, my perspective on Tommy’s soft punishment changed. I now realized that if they caught me, they might give me nothing more than a “stern talking to”.

While in the planning stages, I realized that I didn’t know where The Letter People went after our week with them was over, and I decided to start watching the routines of Miss Landow in the coming week to see what she did with The Letter People when our lesson plan concluded. I don’t remember how sophisticated my plans were, but I knew that when people stole things in the movies, it often ended in gunfire. I also knew that the thieves who survived the gunfire went to jail. As much as I wanted to spend more time with The Letter People, and become better friends with them as a result, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for gun play, but I knew I wouldn’t do well in jail. I tried to live without my mom once, when ran away from home, and that worked out so poorly that friends and family talked about it for years after. Everyone considered it so funny that I couldn’t get to the end of the block without her, and I found it humiliating to realize I wasn’t able to exist on my own. 

With that fantasy out of sight and out of mind, I moderated further. I developed a foolproof plan based on the patterns and behaviors I watched the various players in our school for the next couple of days. When we went to recess and played on the playground for however long it took, Miss Landow stayed with us, monitoring and observing us. On the rare occasion someone had to use the restroom, she allowed them to go inside the school, unmonitored and unaccompanied, to use the facilities. Once I mustered up the courage, and that took some time, I asked to be excused from recess.

The path to the restroom and our classroom were the same, until we hit a fork in the hall, turn right and we’re headed to the open-doored classroom. Turn left, and we’re headed to the bathroom. I thought about this in the planning stages, and I followed my plan to the letter. After asking her if I could go to the restroom, I approached the fork in the hall as casually as I did any other time I went to the restroom, and I turned left to the restroom. I stood on that corner and looked back at Miss Landow. I could see her through a window in the door, talking to a fellow teacher and laughing about something. I carefully looked in every direction, and then I held my breath and crossed the hall and entered into our kindergarten classroom. 

I felt a “whoosh” of emotion when I crossed that threshold, as it was my first experience with committing something so wrong it felt right. I looked back down the hall and up the hall to see if anyone witnessed my transgression. The coast was clear. My immediate thought was to initiate plan A and steal Mr. Q, but I couldn’t think of a way to conceal him well enough to sneak him out the door. Years later, I wondered why I didn’t just deflate him and hide him in my shirt, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t know Mr. Q was inflated back then.

When I finally stood before Mr. Q, I didn’t know what to do. My plan B did not include any details of what I should do when I was finally alone with him, because I didn’t think I’d make it that far. I didn’t want to tackle him, or hurt him in the brutish manner Tommy Spenceri did. I just wanted to touch him little, and I did. It felt a little naughty, but it felt cathartic and pleasing in an almost spiritual manner to run my fingers across him. Then, I touched him so much that I began squeezing him softly, and when I did it made a scrunching sound that I enjoyed. I scrunched him a little more, and then I lowered to a knee and sniffed him, and Mr. Q’s scent was so unique and pleasing that I neared him even more and inhaled that smell deeply.

For most people, memories of childhood are relative. Some remember a few snapshots from high school, some go back further, but very very few can remember anything beyond sixth grade. This moment I spent with Mr. Q felt so special that I would recall it, decades later, when I held a beach ball for far so long for my friends gave me a look that suggested I was doing something worth remembering. I also remember that I would continue to use the restroom excuse to visit the other Letter People we met after Mr. Q, onto the final days with Mr. Z, but my sensorial and physical relationship with Mr. Q, who I knew would remain quiet about our interaction, was the most special.

When the class photo day arrived at the end of the school year, Miss Landow brought back some of the old Letter People we met to stand in that photo. While every other student, Miss Landow, and an assistant teacher said cheese for the camera, I smiled at the Letter People. Thanks to my regular “restroom” visits I thought I knew them, and their essence, better than anyone else in the class. 

Years later, my brother discovered that there was an actual The Letter People television show. I was stunned and shocked, and I don’t know how I verified it, or if I just took my brother’s word for it, but I had to see that show. The problem was that show aired when I was in school, and my brother was so young that he was able to watch that show, and I wasn’t. That destroyed me a little, because I thought he might be developing a better relationship with them than the one I had. I was so bitter and angry that I told him to stop telling me about the episodes. I eventually saw this show, and I don’t remember if it occurred in the first episode I saw, or soon thereafter, but my interest waned quickly. I was too young to know that someone wrote and directed these episodes, and I knew nothing about voice actors, or any of the players involved in such a production, but I thought they did it wrong, all wrong.

“There’s no way Mr. T talks like that,” I, a budding critic, told my brother. I also complained about the various interactions of these characters in whatever six-year-old verbiage and understanding of the world I had at the time. I thought almost all of the characters were wrong, or different than what I imagined. It wouldn’t be the last time a production left me feeling disillusioned, but when my brother later urged me to watch another episode with him, I told him I wouldn’t be watching it again. Watching the Letter People interact could’ve and probably should’ve ruined all the mystiques I built for them in my personal interactions with them, but it didn’t because I thought I knew them on a level no one else did. I thought I knew them on a level that could critique what others thought they knew. My guess was that those who created that show didn’t know who the Letter People were, what they cared about, and how they interacted with people in real life.

When I finally made the connection between Mr. Q and the feel and smell of that beach ball, the totality of the connection, as it pertained to my story and the “something different” elements that have defined me, didn’t immediately strike me. There wasn’t a “whoosh!” of understanding that overcame me, but I had an answer. The connection did remind me what an incredibly fun imagination I once had as kid. My immediate thought was “Holy crap, I wish I could go back to that. That was so fun.” I basically created this world where I lived with intimate knowledge of The Letter People, and that led me to think about all of the other worlds I created for my comfort and amusement. Those worlds felt so real to me back then that they were actually kind of embarrassing to talk about for decades after, because I went so far overboard. I stretched my imagination into realms that caused the smiles of my listeners to fade, because most people consider exaggerations a little concerning and/or weird. They also immediately react with a harmless insult such as, “I’m going to guess you didn’t have a lot of friends, non-imaginary friends.” It’s funny, of course, but it’s also not true. I had a lot of friends, imaginary and real. 

The final thing that struck me was as enjoyable as reliving those memories proved to be that fun, almost artistic imagination of childhood is pretty much gone now. I did wish I could go back to having that imagination that was so incredible that it was almost embarrassing to talk about, but I also know that there is always a tradeoff. So, even if I were to find a bottle with a genie in it, I wouldn’t trade my current scientific and mathematical understandings of the ways of universe with the incredibly creative one I had as a kid, because as wonderful and beautiful as the childish imagination could be, it also comes equipped with the confusion and fears of the unknown that can be just as powerful and scary, and when we’re huffing on a beach ball remembering the former, with such a huge smile that it can cause a tear to form, sometimes we forget the latter.