A Slow Autobiography: Before Elementary

This is what I remember of my life before the age of 6, as a boy growing up in suburban Oregon.

I didn't go to kindergarten, for the simplest of reasons: my family didn't have the money at that time.

I had a mild speech impediment: I couldn't pronounce the letter 'L'. This was problematic, as my name begins with that letter. I took some speech therapy classes at the local university, and cleared that up.

I had a puppy, a terrier mix of some sort; he had lots of energy, and broke one of his legs jumping off of the couch.

I had my own accident from that couch: I was watching Sesame Street, and somehow fell backwards onto the coffee table. I got a cut on my head that required a few stitches. My grandfather had made the coffee table, inlaid with slices of geodes he and my grandmother had found during their 'snowbird' months in Arizona.

I was good at math, so my father's aunt gave me some math workbooks (I think they were third-grade level); she was an elementary school principal.