I was best friends with Chris in kindergarten.

Chris was older than me by several months, but I was several times his size. I probably could have pounded him to a pulp with one chubby fist if I wanted to, but Chris was my best buddy. I knew him from church. He was sweet and unassuming, and I liked to boss. We were a good team.

Our parents would alternate driving us to school. I always looked forward to the days when it was Chris' parents turn to drive because his dad would take us to school on his mo-ped. I'm surprised now that my parents would let us ride that thing. I don't remember a trip during which some piece of the bike didn't fall off midway.

I was in the highest reading group in our class. I don't say that to brag. Being a high reader in kindergarten only means we read three-word sentences rather than two. I mention it because while I was reading stories titled "The Dog Ran," Chris wasn't reading at all.

He had ADD, as it was called then, and a few other learning disabilities that prevented him acting like the rest of us. I was only five, and I knew there was something not quite right about Chris. But I loved him, I really did. If I'd have had to pick a future mate right there on the playground, I would have chosen Chris no questions asked. (While, incidentally, my actual future mate was peeking up little girls skirts just few swing sets away.)

We had an evil teacher, Ms. Clark. She was middle-aged and unmarried, which was probably to blame for her evilness. I could never understand how you could be evil when you led a classroom full of adorable, big-eyed five-year-olds, but somehow she managed. She looked a bit like a witch, tall and dark-headed and olive-skinned. (My gosh, I just described myself! Do I scare little children?!?)

The assignments in kindergarten are fairly simple. Write the letter H. Color the horse pink. Spell "he."

We had an imaginary astronaut that delivered a special assignment to our classroom every day while we were gone to recess. "Artie," like most astronauts, cared about the education of Yesterday's youth, and more specifically he cared that we learned our numbers 1-10. Each day, we had an exciting new mission from Artie. Write the number 3! And write it again!

Similarly, grading in kindergarten is not that difficult. Most of the time our assignments were returned to us with a smiley face. Good job, says the Witch. Or occasionally you got a check mark. That'll do, she snivels. I almost always got smiley faces. A check mark would have sent me into convulsions.

One day, I was sitting next to Chris when our assignments were returned. Lots of smiley faces and check marks around the room, no surprises there. I glanced over at my buddy's paper. Right there, on the top of sweet little Chris' mission from Artie to write Q, was a big, fat, red "F."

And Chris was crying.

There were no letter grades in kindergarten. Even I knew that! Our report cards were a series of pluses and minuses. Just a sad face on a assignment would have crushed our little souls and were therefore given out sparingly.

Yet horrible Ms. Clark, with her apparent vendetta against big-eared, scrawny, already-behind-and-its-only-kindergarten kids, had taken it upon herself to administer the first blow to Chris' already tiny self-confidence.

I hated her for it, and it's still the most vivid memory I have from that year of my life.

It continued to be rough for Chris from there on out. His disability and difficult home life didn't bode well for him through adolescence. He was picked on enough that he finally managed to make himself disappear. Though we had a very small class of 82 students, I barely remember noticing Chris in high school.

He graduated and got married and now has an adorable baby named Ireland. He's done okay for himself and certainly seems happy enough when I see him in passing every few months, but I have to wonder what would have become of Chris if he hadn't been told, as a five-year-old boy, that he was already a failure.