The Ball
I went to the second half of kindergarten and the first half of first grade at Dozier School in St. Louis, Missouri. Dozier was overcrowded--forty-plus kids per teacher. The story, as I remember hearing it later, was that St. Louis had responded to court-mandated racial integration by abolishing all geographic boundaries between schools. If everybody can send their kids to any school, then all the schools are integrated, right? So most of the white kids went to what had been white schools all along and the black kids to what had been black schools. And somehow that worked out to lots and lots of white kids going to Dozier. My sister and I (both of us quite white) went there because it was a block away. Before Dozier we'd been two of the three white kids at Marshall School, so give us half a dozen liberal brownie points.
Kindergarten at Dozier was held in the gymnasium. There were about 100 kids, half at one end with one teacher, half at the other end with another teacher. For activities that involved neither sitting down nor going outside, the classes came together in the middle of the gym.
I could already read, so I'd gotten labeled "gifted" (or whatever the term was back then) and been thrown into some first-grade activities while still in kindergarten. Given the survival mode of the teachers in that school, getting noticed for something good was probably nearly impossible, but there I was. It probably had something to do with neither of my parents being consistently drunk, which I don't think was the norm in the neighborhood. At any rate, I got the label and the special attention and that was one-half of the beginning of the end for me.
The other half came on the playground. The word "playground" requires some explanation. I think there may have been some playground equipment, but I don't remember ever being in contact with it. Because of the overcrowding, recess was a very regimented affair, mainly with a view to keeping every student in a grade-determined location in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of any of the smaller kids getting beat up by any of the bigger ones. Not preventing altogether, given the tendency of the less attentive ("gifted") to stray off and get their clocks cleaned by some older enforcer.
At any rate, I learned on the playground that I was a klutz. Not in a minor way, but in a way that suggested some special giftedness in the matter of klutzetude. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't have been bothered, and I may not have even noticed. But other kids were quite ready to help me understand my unique qualities.
But the real confirmation came from my teacher. I do not remember what any of the kids said (probably whatever terms of abuse were in common playground use half a century ago), but I remember word-for-word what my first-grade teacher wrote on my report card. After my grades (E G G E G G S S S, long before grade inflation) her only comment was "does not know how to hold a ball." A sentence with no expressed subject because, after all, my name was written in near the top of the yellow church-bulletin-size pasteboard form.
Klutzetude of this magnitude was not to be grown out of. In fifth or sixth grade a new kid in school appeared for a moment to have me beat, but he was said to be "cute" (something no one not married to me has ever said about me), so the girls chased him, and by high school he was one of the best athletes in school. Not me. We moved a few times while I was in school, but it did no good. It followed me. I was quickly recognized as a klutz everywhere.
Certain clear results come of being "gifted" and a klutz:
I became the indoorsy type, which is a good thing considering how my (quite white) skin reacts to sunshine.
I stayed away from sports that involve objects.
Even though I was tall for my age, I got beat up a lot. Pugilists could look impressive with little risk. Another factor may have been some indiscretion in the use of my superior verbal abilities.
I always had teachers and similar adults expecting me to excel in the indoorsy activities that they value more than playground abilities.
I still drop the ball a lot, metaphorically as well if my inventory of unfinished projects and friends who know not to ask me to do this-or-that is any witness.