"Hello Dr. Wong, this is my daughter Ruth. You said you wanted to have some time to talk with her before agreeing she could switch off with Becky."

"Thank you Mr. Wyman. How long do we have today?" She looks at her calendar. "How about Ruth and I take a little time to get to know each other. Then, she can watch Mrs. Wyman act as an observer. After the session, we can go over things and make a decision."

I nodded at this and looked at Becky and she said. "That works Okay I think." Upon which Dr. Wong beckoned to Ruth, and they went off to talk.

"Do you think she'll accept Ruth?"

"My guess is yes, Bill. Except when she's clowning Ruth's a very mature and grown up young lady and you know how hard that is to say about my little girl!" I laughed at this last.

"Well, that's very true, and, it is good to hear you say that. You two did have enough battles while she was in High School."

"I think that happens to most moms when they see their daughter doing the things they did or wanted to do, and see them growing up. You know, I always felt a little jealous of how well the two of you got along?"

I looked up at the last. "Huh? What's so unusual about my getting along with one of my kids?"

"Oh, Bill, you're so blind sometimes! Most men get along with their sons to some extent through shared interests, but either ignore or just barely acknowledge their daughters. You've always been there for all three of our kids. I can probably count on both hands the number of special events they've all had that you've missed. And, actually talking to the girls as if they're people and on topics THEY want to talk about! Good grief, how could you not have noticed this?"

I sat there a bit surprised at all of this and not really sure what to say. "Ummm. You're kidding aren't you? I mean, what else should I do?"

She sat there shaking her head. "Nothing, Bill, Don't change anything! It's one of the things I love about you! I guess that's one of the reasons I've been so concerned about this, is that I fear you might change."

"Hey, I've no intention of changing who I am! And, I've got you, and hopefully occasionally Ruth, there to make sure!"

She shook herself at that. "And we will too! I've not said anything to Ruth, but, I'm sure she's got things figured out!" I nodded at this. "Well, they're still in there. I wonder what they're talking about."

"Oh, I suspect it's gone beyond Ruth's background and she's describing her Cold War course paper." At Becky's questioning gaze I continued. "You know the course Ruth's taking on the Cold War." At her nod I said. "Well, she has to write a paper for the course, and she's picked a topic that will require some Psychiatry expertise to get some of the information. I suspect she's already trying to pump Dr. Wong for that kind of information." I said with a bit of a smile.

Becky echoed my smile at the end. "That sounds like Ruth, always seeking. Oh, I think that's them." At which point Dr. Wong and Ruth returned.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wyman, you have an amazing daughter here, as I'm sure you know. I think she'll do a wonderful job, but let's go on. Mr. Wyman, do you have any preferences on where we start?"

"I don't really know, do we just start at the back end and work until I'm like a year old?"

"We could I guess, but that would tend to take a long time, perhaps years." At my negative reaction to that she continued. "Actually, I think we have a couple of choices on how to go forward. One is we can try to zero in directly on whatever caused the memory loss. I'd rather differ that until you're all feeling more comfortable with the process. We could also try to get more details about some thing you do remember. We could try to recover some memory around something you should have a memory or we could just try to find a random memory around some point in time. I believe one of the middle two would be the best choice at this point."

I looked over at Becky who said. "Well, you did make up that list of events Bill."

"Okay, you pick one Becky."

"How about that sand sliding event." And, at my nod she turned to Dr. Wong. "This was a case where Bill remembers sliding down a big pile of sand with two other people, one male and one female. And all their wearing is a pair of under shorts. I've heard that much from Bill in the past as well."

Dr. Wong nodded. "Okay, Ruth can watch, and as this doesn't sound too stressful, I think we can work things like we did last week. Sound OK?" At everyone's nod, she led us back to the room. I sat in the chair, and Becky and Ruth were behind me somewhere. I'm glad this chair is comfortable and doesn't feel like the one in the dentist's office. I think that'd be pretty distracting, constantly expecting 'now open your mouth'. I realized my mind was wandering, and tried to return my focus on Dr. Wong.

"As I mentioned last week, we'll start by taking you to your safe glade, then we'll go for a trip to look for a memory and return." She started about as I was expecting. "As you walk through the forest, you begin to feel the peace and quiet seeping into your body." A little while later, I heard someone telling me to take a new walk. "Now let's go back to the time you were sliding down the hill. You can get there quickly and look down upon yourself. What do you see?"

"I'm going down this gigantic hill of sand. It's so much fun. There are other piles around but they're not so much fun to slide, ‘cause some are rocks and such, but the sand is great."

"Is anyone with you?"

"Oh yea, my little brother and my cousin. We're being a little careful taking turns going down and running up together. It's a blast."

"How old are you?"

"I'm six."

"And your brother and cousin?"

"Sam's 4 and Betty Sue's 7. It's sometimes a pain having Sam tag along, but he was fun today."

"What are you wearing?"

"Mom's going to be upset. I've just got my unders on, but it's fun this way."

"Why will your mom be upset?"

"Oh, cause they're orange now in the dust!"

"What happens next?"

"We hear someone calling, probably for lunch, so we head off for the cabin."

"What's the cabin?"

"Oh, it's the little house my uncle has here on his camp. We're staying here for a bit while we're on vacation."

"This is a camp?"

"Well, that's what everyone seems to call it. It's a strange camp though. Nobody else is around, and all these piles of rock and sand and such. And that big lake we're not supposed to swim in. I mean how many lakes are there that you can't go swimming in."

"When you get to the camp, what do you see?"

"Well, it was mom calling and she doesn't look to happy. She called dad out to get us cleaned up."

"How'd your dad get you cleaned?"

"Oh, he sprayed us down good with the hose. It would have been fun, if we'd been able to run around, but he made us stand still while he rinsed off all the orange sand. He said the unders were garbage and to drop them and gave us some towels to dry off."

"What did you do next?"

"Oh, we went in and got dressed for lunch. I mean, that's what mom called us for."

"Who's there?"

"Well, mom and dad of course, and my brother Sam, and my cousin Betty Sue, and that's Aunt Lynn. I don't see anyone else right now."

"Whose camp is this?"

"Oh, it's Uncle George's."

"And, what is the place?"

"It's Uncle George's gravel place. They use his rocks and gravel allover."

"It's time to go back to the forest now. You walk off into the wood and things are peaceful." A bit later, I realized we were back.

"Wow. I hope someone wrote all that stuff down! I can't wait to check it out! That was amazing!"

"Well Mr. Wyman, it's also an example you really do need to check out. It started with me guiding you to the starting point. By suggesting the topic of the memory, you were able to fill in the details. Had I suggested carefully a starting point that you'd not been too, your mind could have manufactured details. This is what we are working to avoid. I felt it was warranted in this case, since as far as you know you actually recalled how this event started. And, based on what you recalled, most of it should be easily verifiable. This is very important in the process. We need to be able to recognize what makes for actual memories for you and what are things your mind has manufactured. There will be some characteristics we can identify after a while that will help us recognize which is which, and the verification process is part of that. At some point, we should also cause you to manufacture a memory and show that it can't be verified so that you can reject it and we get a base point on that side."

"How can that work? Isn't a memory a memory?"

"Well, some people are able to manufacture more details for real memories and others for the false ones, and others tend to be the other way. This is not always the case, but if we can establish a baseline for you, it may help in the long run."

"Okay, thanks. How easy will it be to get rid of that false memory?"

"Well, it will not necessarily go away, but you'll be able to ignore it, or discount it. With no intervention, it'll be more like your description of how you thought you'd lost your memories. You still remember it, but you now believe it didn't happen, right?"

"That's true. Thanks. I can live with that."

"Ruth, do you have any questions on what just went on?"

She looked at Ruth, who responded "When you start, you take dad to his safe spot. Is it normal to have to ask him about it and to change where he is?"

"You picked up on that did you? Good. No, it's not normal. Usually a client will be able to go directly to their safe spot with a simple direction once they are in a light trance. As we found last week, it seems your father has an inclination to go somewhere else, that stone tower, so for now, I want to make sure he actually goes where we expect him to go." She turned to me. "And, before you ask, yes you did try to go to the tower at the beginning today. It wasn't as strong as last week and we got you right to the glade, so I thought it was all right to go on. And, apparently your family agreed." She looked up at Becky then who nodded. "Okay, next week same time then?" At our nod, she went on to Ruth "I'll take a look, and see if I can find anything that might be useful to you on your topic."

"Thanks Dr. Wong. I really appreciate this. I'm sure I'll have more questions as time goes on."

"Now, I'd prefer you not drive for half an hour Mr. Wyman. It's probably not an issue, I just want to make sure you're all the way out of the trance and we're not taking a lot of time discussing things today."

"Not a problem. Ruth can drive the car to the Uni after we drop Becky off. I'll see you next week." And out we went. Dropping Becky off at her office was easy and we were off toward the Uni."

"Dad, that was an interesting thing hearing you tell that story. Do you think all that really happened?"

"It sounds like it well could have Ruth. The names are all right, as are the relative ages of me, my brother Sam, and Betty Sue. You remember the chocolate Ice Cream we make?" At her agreement I continued. "Well, the recipe is Aunt Lynn's."

"I didn't know that your Uncle George had a gravel pit. I thought he was a farmer."

"I dunno about that bit Ruth. That's one of the bits I'll need to check on. But he did have several businesses he was involved in. The farming was more of a hobby. I really wish you and the others could have gotten to meet him. He was quite a character!"

"You've told tales. I recall the one where he took you and mom out into the watermelon field and just pointed at one to pick. You said it was really good! How does someone know that just by looking?"

"I'm not sure about that, but my mom used to say he'd cut open watermelons out in the field after most had been harvested and taste them. I guess he got good at recognizing them by looks."

"That must have been a LOT of melons dad."

"True. He said that after the harvest there were a lot still on the vines, and he'd just plow them under to start the fertilization process."

"Wow. What did he die of anyway?"

"He had lung cancer, like one of his and mom's brothers. Cancer's not been nice to them. Betty Sue's daughter got hit by a version of childhood leukemia." I sighed at the end.

"Oh, I'm sorry dad."

"It happens Ruth. Don't worry. Oh, apparently your chat with Dr. Wong was productive as far as your paper was concerned?"

"Yea, she said she remembered reading about something like that when researching for her dissertation, but since it didn't directly apply she left it out. She said she'd go dig through some of her notes and see if she could find anything."

"That's promising. I think your prof had some ideas for avenues for searching too."

"That’s right, and I'll do some internet searching for whatever I can find. There's some good stuff out on the net it's just filtering it through all the junk."

"I hear that. It's an issue we face with private content even. Finding a way to teach the search engines how to find what we need, rather than unrelated stuff that just happens to have the same search terms indexed."

After dropping Ruth off, and hopping in the drivers’ seat, I headed back to town, thinking about what all had happened. I hope tomorrow is productive. At times it's seamed like I've been making 2 steps back for every 3 forward. Well, I guess time will tell.