One room, tiny tables, lots of kids and nursery rhymes. It's 1971, and Elsie Martinez is there.
A decade goes by, and another and another. The children have changed, the tables are different, but the room is still there, and so is Elsie.
Over the years, people have asked her repeatedly, almost in dismay, sort of in amazement, "Are you still there?"
Frankly, it never occurred to her to be anywhere else; that's how much she loves her career.
"People would never ask a bank president that, but I was asked all the time. Of course I was 'still there.' I love children."
Martinez spent 30 years at the Northwest Multipurpose Center in Salt Lake City, coddling, teaching, dancing and playing soccer with other people's children in the center's child-care operation.
She wiped their noses, taught them their numbers and corralled them countless times in trip after trip to the zoo, to the park, to Tracy Aviary.
Year after year she watched them grow up and leave and earned such a reputation that some of them came back and brought their own children for her to love.
In a corner of the Northwest center at 1300 West and 300 North, it isn't just a room for pre-kindergartners.
It is "Elsie's Room" and is still called that despite her retirement in February.
She's quick to admit being away from the kids is driving her nuts, so she's headed back as a volunteer.
"I can't sit here and grow old."
Her career was dedicated to caring for "pre-kindergartners" and getting them ready for school.
Counting. Colors. Sitting still. Manners.
There was a time she was asked to be a day-care administrator.
She did it four months and ached the entire time to go back into the classroom.
"My thing was not sitting in an office and doing office work. I wanted to be with the kids, that is what I enjoyed; that was my thing."
In a career fraught with tantrums, sneezes, screams and laughter, Martinez never believed in simply watching children.
When the kids danced to music, she danced.
When they played basketball, she shot hoops.
"I believe those kids are who kept me young inside because I could be playing alongside of them."
When they kicked soccer balls, so did she, except when she was recovering from a foot operation.
That drove her crazy.
"I can't just sit back and do nothing. I can't stand there and watch. I have to get in there and play."
She sees her "kids" everywhere.
"I was at the airport one day and here comes this man, all dressed up in a suit, looking so nice. He stared at me, started to walk away and stared at me again."
He remembered Elsie because she had cared for him when he was young.
"He said I hadn't changed a bit, but he sure had; he was all grown up."
The first batch of kids is now 36, and they've come back to her, bringing their children for another generation of love.
"I didn't remember this woman's name because I knew her only by her maiden name, but when I saw her, I knew her instantly. She was such a sweet little girl who never gave me any trouble. Her boys were just as sweet"
There have been children who have tested her, children who have made her hold her tongue and count to 10.
"I've been bitten, hit, kicked, spit at and called names, but that's just part of the job; you never take it personally."
Helen Romero runs the child-care center at Northwest and worked 25 years with Elsie.
In those years, she watched a lot of teachers come and go and saw a lot of teaching styles.
"The amazing thing to me is Elsie was in the same room with the same age of children for so long. She knew how to run a classroom like nobody's business."
Despite headlines about kids who molest, murder or rob, Martinez says her faith in children has never wavered.
"Kids have changed some because they are exposed to so much more," she said. "But I believe every child is good. There is no such thing as a bad child, just a child who gets into bad situations."
E-MAIL: amyjoi@desnews.com