I Remember "Winky"

     Blog 57

I Remember “Winky”

by

Barbara P. Hendricks

Barbara P. Hendricks

It is quite usual to find articles in newspapers and magazines about memory-the long term, the short term, the impact it makes on life-long learning, the loss of it; memory is a favorite topic. It seems that the older I get, the more frequently I recall my early childhood years. I remember fondly many things that happened to me, even before I was old enough to attend school.

Some people might think that I had a lonely childhood because I grew up without any brothers or sisters, but I was never lonely. I enjoyed the companionship of neighborhood playmates and my friends from Sunday school.  Because I was an only child, I had a very special relationship with my mother and father and my grandmother who lived with us. I learned earlier than most children, the art of conversation because I spent a lot of quality time with the adults in my home and with the adults who often visited us.

According to educational terminology, I was a precocious child. My parents were always seeking ways for me to interact with children of my age. Perhaps they needed some time away from endless chatter and questions. The solution for all of us came from a family friend, Miss King,” who lived one street over from ours. We could see her house from our back yard and a shallow creek separated our back yards. Miss King was a first grade teacher and in those days, teachers’ salaries were truly meager. During the summer months many black teachers took jobs as maids or babysitters to supplement their income. Miss King had another idea. She had a big house and no children of her own, so she opened a summer “kindergarten” in her home. There were no kindergarten available to black children and this decision on her part generated much excitement among Miss King’s friends who had children.

I still remember the day my mother told me about the kindergarten and then said that I would be going there for the summer. I was so excited I could hardly wait for the first day! My mother took me shopping to buy my first “book satchel” (today’s kid say “book bag”). On opening day, my father gave me fifty cents to pay my “tuition” for the week and my mother tied it in the corner of a handkerchief for me. I packed a little notebook, a pencil, and a box of crayons in my new book satchel. My mother tucked the handkerchief into a pocket on my dress and I was ready to go. My mother walked with me to the end of the yard and waited until I walked across the plank from one side of the little creek to the other. When I was safely in Miss King’s yard, I waved to my mother and ran to Miss King’s back door.

When she opened the door and directed me to my “classroom” I could not believe what I saw! I had been to Kiss King’s house many times with my mother, but what I remembered as her dining room had become a bright and colorful room filled with all kinds of books, small toys, colored paper for drawing, and a big chalk board stood in the corner in front of her china cabinet. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen- a room just for children who were five years old, like me. Shortly after I arrived, five other youngsters came and I was really happy because I knew them from Sunday school.

Kindergarten was off to a great beginning! Miss King then told us that she was going to teach us how to read and she brought to the dining room table six brand new “readers.” We most often hear that children in that time period remember Dick and Jane. A boy and a girl were mentioned in my new reader, but I have I have no memory of their names. In addition to their mother and father, there was one other member of their household. His name was “Winky” and he was a little monkey!  I don’t know why Winky stands out in my memory, but I distinctly remember Winky.  After a few weeks, I was reading quite well because I loved to read about Winky’s antics. In the reader he was pictured wearing a little blue suit and a little round hat that sat on the side of his head. To this day, I do not know why there was a monkey in their home as a pet in 1944. Today, it is not unusual to hear of people choosing pets like monkeys and other animals normally considered to be wild. Nevertheless, I remembered Winky.

Winky set me on a course that is with me to this day. I am sure that my enthusiasm for reading was enhanced by my introduction to him at Miss King’s Kindergarten. Every day I would carry my little reader to school and back in my book satchel! On weekends I would line up all my dolls and read to them the stories about Winky. I even created some new stories about him that were not in the book! My creative juices flowed freely back then and that little reader was very special to me, mainly because of Winky. I have retained that love of learning to this day.

When my own children were born, I bought a book for each of them and they too grew up loving books. A great joy to me has been seeing my daughter reading stories to her children from books that she owned as a child. My home still has some of those books on the book shelves and our grandchildren often select them to read when they visit us. I don’t know which characters they remember or find most appealing, but as far as I am concerned, I still remember Winky!

Note:

            A brief bio of Mrs. Hendricks can be found in blog 39.