All my life I've been a show-off. Ever since first grade I was a clown, and even then I tried to entertain everyone.
From the time I was in first grade or so, my dad collected 'Star Wars' toy figures from the 1970s and '80s, and we'd take weekend family trips to antique shops and to toy stores. My father collected a crazy amount of 'Star Wars' stuff over the years, and he and I traveled to many conventions.
I only finished first grade.
I failed first grade, which is my biggest problem. You always feel like a failure, like you're stupid.
I wasn't that over-the-top, but I got sent to the principal in first grade for talking. And my father was for a long time the president of the Board of Education. That was always a hard note to bring home.
When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.
I had a bad time in school in the first grade. Because I had been a rather lonely child on a farm, but I was free and wild and to be shut up in a classroom - there were 40 children on those days in the classroom, and it was quite a shock.
When I was in first grade, the kids called me 'fatso.' It hurt, but the way I overcame it was to outrun every kid in the class. So I developed a thick skin, and athletics became my way of performing and being accepted.
I had my two front teeth knocked out by a sixth grader in first grade.
When I was supposed to go to a certified kindergarten that's supposed to teach you actual things like how to read, I went to a daycare that my parents thought was a kindergarten. I was Crayola-ing inside the lines with no fundamental education at all. So I walked into the first grade with no formal education at all.
