Why do I remember all these females?
 

I have a memory a little like an old room full of keepsakes, vivid but both useless and interesting, especially if women were involved.  Unfortunately I have no idea what to do with them.  The keepsakes, that is.
 

For instance, I remember as if it was yesterday, sitting in the circle in kindergarten straining hard to be sure I understood the grandmotherly Mrs. Best’s English.  I can even see the circle pattern on the floor that shows us where we have to sit.  Why in the world that and not some earth shattering insight into the nature of existence?  One day at home the same year, I am sitting in the living room with my mother, watching a ray of light come through the window and making all the dust particles dance.  I distinctly recall telling myself that this was important.  I haven’t yet figured out why.
 

In grade 2, there was a student who came to class a half hour late.  Why?  “Because I was running to cross the street before the light turned but this huge truck turned in front of me and I was waiting and waiting and waiting.”  Our teacher, Miss Van Malder, who I realize now in looking at my class picture, was a stunning red head, said, “it must have been a very long truck.”  I think I laughed as hard at this as I did when I saw “Borat”. 
 

But Grade six was the worst.  I found out my school was closing at the end of the year.  I walked around it trying to memorize every brick and have it etched permanently in my memory.  Now I find it hard to see the building for the bricks.
 

I also learned my favourite teacher, Miss Adams, was getting married before the end of the year.  She was going to live in Aurora.  We got a map to follow her trip from downtown Toronto into the far North.  To us those tens of miles seemed to be taking her from the hub of our school to the edge of nowhere. 
 

“It’s out in the country,” said my friend, John.  “I wonder if they have radio out there.”
Miss Adams was to my eyes, the beautiful heroine who had no business marrying some older man out in a small town.  I was smitten with her, yet looking at her picture, I see she is much plainer than Miss Van Malder.
 

At her goodbye party, we drew a map of Yonge Street and tried to pin Aurora blind folded.  The girls started kissing the boys so, naturally, we boys ran and hid in another class in the closet.  We stayed in the closet, whispered and laughed together when the girls couldn’t find us.  They sounded so vexed; it was almost delicious to feel them get their comeuppance. 
 

Hey, they deserved it.  They’re the ones who started all the kissing business, which everyone knew then, was something real boys were not interested in.  It is my regret to inform you, however, that our male solidarity did not last and some of my pals took to this kissing business with gusto. 
 

Even John got pulled into the back of the bus on the return from our field trip to Niagara Falls.  As he explained to me, the glasses skewed on his face and lipstick smears on his mouth and cheeks, “they tricked me.  I just barely escaped.”
 

When my blonde Finnish girl friend tried to kiss me, I manfully resisted, although she, her sister and her cousin surrounded me and threatened to flash me.  I turned to the wall and kept my eyes closed tight.
 

Despite remembering these things in detail, I am uncertain about what I learned.  Did these things just stick to me like pieces of kneaded flour flung against a wall?  Is there some overall message I am missing? What is most annoying of all is that in all of these instances I am still not sure whether I acted like a paragon of virtue or an idiot.