By Mark Kennedy

Life Stories

Last week, I went to see “The Nutcracker” at the Tivoli Theatre with my son’s kindergarten class.

It was a learning experience.

To start with, my 6-year-old is dubious about the whole idea of Dad showing up at school. One day recently I tried to join him for lunch, and he got all squirmy and made me eat my chef salad at the teachers’ table.

On “Nutcracker” day, I woke up excited.

“The Nutcracker” was my first official field trip since 1972, when my junior-high “A Club” took a school bus to Atlanta and watched the first five minutes of the movie “Cabaret.” When the four-letter words started flying in the movie dialogue, the terrified chaperones stood us up and marched us out of the theater.

Walking to the CARTA shuttle bus stop last week, I held my son’s hand and fell into line behind the moms. As we crossed Market Street, I took the hand of another little boy who didn’t have a parent along.

I’ll call him Little Man.

Little Man has an easy smile and a fast mouth, and we immediately clicked. For the next three hours, he entertained me with random observations.

“I like your shoes,” he said, as we waited for a shuttle bus.

“Thanks,” I said.

“My granddaddy’s got shoes like that,” he said.

“Nice,” I said.

“You know something, I’ve got Super Vision,” Little Man explained.

“You do?” I said. “How fortunate.”

“Yeah, I can see around that corner,” he said gesturing up to Main Street. “And I can also see inside that building. There’s people inside there,” he said, pointing at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

“Amazing,” I said.

“I can also see out the back of my head,” Little Man bragged.

“That will be useful if you ever take up ice hockey,” I said.

A stray dog wandered by, and Little Man began to school me on the ins and outs of pet ownership.

“We had a dog, but we didn’t have any wood to make a doghouse, so we just made him a pallet on the porch,” Little Man said. “We covered him up with a blanket.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Dogs get cold.”

A few minutes later, still waiting for a bus to take us to the Tivoli, Little Man noticed a man in a green coat walking across Market Street.

“I know that guy!” Little Man said excitedly. “His name is Lard.”

“Lard?” I said.

“Yeah, Lard,” Little Man repeated. “Not the Lard up in heaven but another Lard.”

Later, inside the Tivoli, I saw Little Man’s head tilt backward and his jaw drop.

“It looks like we’re inside a book,” he said, gazing up at the embellishments on the domed ceiling of the Tivoli.

A little boy from another school tugged on my sleeve. “Hey teacher, are those real diamonds?” he asked, pointing to the chandeliers in the lobby.

“No,” I said. “Those are not diamonds, they’re glass. And I’m not a teacher, I’m a dad. I mean, dads can be teachers, but I happen not to be one. Never mind.”

The performance by the Chattanooga Ballet was amazing, and even the little ones in the audience were mesmerized.

At one climactic point in the ballet, one of the dancers did the splits.

“Yee-ahhh!” Little Man shouted, not being schooled in all the fine points of ballet-audience etiquette.

It was an honest bravo, I decided, and therefore 100 percent appropriate considering the setting.

“Yee-ahhh!” I said softy, chuckling to myself.

In some distant tomorrow, I imagine that Little Man will remember his first visit to the ballet.

If his memory feels like magical dream spent “inside a book,” then I’d say this kindergarten field trip was a rousing success.

E-mail Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com