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Previous: Back to the Grind Next: Dr. Kooiker My impression of first grade is generally happy, warmed by some one-on-one time with the sweet and amiable Mrs. Gooding. Towards the end of the school year she brought me aside a number times for tutoring while a trainee taught the rest of the class. At the end of the school day I would arrive home and greet Mom in the kitchen. She would have the Jeopardy! trivia game show, then in its first year, playing on TV. For a while I got in a habit of watching it. As with the local news program, I was fascinated by the tightly ritualized structure of the show, with its game board taller than a person, and by the mechanical process it was put through by its hidden human operators. The scorekeeping and the daily winners and losers also had some interest, but in other ways it was like the TV weather maps and stock market displays again, a big, amazing machine with hidden operators doing myste...