Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt Page B

forceful, she announces she’s a Power Ranger.
    The parents and Ginny and I are asked to proceed outside for the Halloween parade. We pass signs, mottos, and aphorisms of encouragement on the school walls. A painted dog balances a ball on its nose over the words, “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.” I greet Andrew, an autistic boy who was in Jessie’s first-grade class last year. He had a special teacher to help him. He used to ask me, “Are you my Daddy?” I cannot determine if he recognizes me, but he gives me a hug.
    Sammy’s kindergarten class is lined up in the hall, shepherded by Pam Merritt. Ms. Merritt has the independent, high-style look of the favorite aunt, regal posture, a blues-singer’s smoky voice, and wears red sneakers. Sammy is Ironman, his new number-one superhero. He sees us and waves.
    Gypsies, angels, Spidermen, Supermen. They file past the crowd and kick up the fallen leaves. Harris, who has taken off early from work, joins us. Jessie and Sammy march by and light up at the sight of him. Fathers and mothers step out of the pack to take pictures. Children pose before the red-brick wall or under the trees of muted autumn colors. At the appearance of a girl dressed as Sherlock Holmes, Ginny and I exchange a look. One Halloween, when Carl was eight and Amy five, they had a battle royal over who would dress as Sherlock Holmes and who as Dr. Watson. Carl said, “I’m the oldest, so I’m Holmes.” Amy said, “Dr. Watson was the oldest, too. You’re Watson.” They each dressed as Holmes, referring to the other as an imposter.
     
    Bubbies sings and dances to “Toddler Favorites.” Ginnyleads him: “Where is Thumbkin, where is Thumbkin?” They sing, “Here I am, here I am.” Ginny employs the unnervingly precise voice of the former schoolteacher. She knows all the hand gestures that accompany the lyrics. “Here I am.” She holds her thumbs in front of her. “How are you today, sir? Very well, I thank you.” She wiggles her thumbs as if they are talking to each other. “Run away. Run away.” She hides her thumbs behind her back. Bubbies is mesmerized, as am I.
    “How do you know to do that stuff?” I ask.
    “I’m programmed,” she says. “Scary, isn’t it?”
     
    I tend to do whatever Bubbies says, but Harris talks to him as if he were in his midtwenties. (He also has taken to calling him James now that he is in school, and with some resistance, I generally go along.) One Sunday morning, before I packed to get ready for my drive to Quogue, James was in his usual place at the kitchen table, telling people where he wanted them to sit. He does that. If you take a seat he does not sanction, he will shake a fist at you. “Sit here”—some other place. Only he seems to know the proper assignments. That morning Ginny had taken the wrong seat, so James let her have it. “Mimi sit here!”—indicating the other side of the table. Harris entered and told him, “Don’t worry about where people sit.” The off hand tone of Harris’s command had me laughing for much of my drive. I called Harris from Quogue at the end of the afternoon. “Do you realize,” I said, “that by telling James not to dictate where people sit, you’ve deprived him of sixty percent of his subject matter?”
    “Be that as it may,” Harris said. “He hasn’t told anyone where to sit all day.”
     
    “Boppo! Look at this!” Jessie shows me her new Book of World Records . “It has the Yankees in it!” I say, “So? How many World Series have the Yankees won?” She doesn’t need to check the book. “Twenty-six,” she says. “Just for that,” I tell her, “grab your bags. We’re off to Paris for the weekend!” She raises her clenched fists at her sides as though she were carrying suitcases, and trots toward the front door.
     
    “You know, Jessie, when I was a little girl…”
    “Oh, Boppo!”
     
    My teaching load for the fall term consists of two courses, and remains