In which Bill tells Becky of his dream, and he meets his third grade teacher.
Who Was I
By: Annette MacGregor
... and headed for home, thinking about all I'd seen and heard. This was just amazing. Suddenly, a car came out of nowhere.
I slammed on my brakes and...

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Part 19   Thursday morning (9-Nov-06)

I stretched and hit the alarm clock while yawning leaned over to make sure Becky was getting up. "Hi sweety, it's that time of day again." I said as I leaned over to give her a kiss.

She stretched. "One of these days, I'm going to throw that alarm out the window. Were you up a bit last night?" At my nod, she went on "Project problems?"

"No, actually it was a strange dream. A few bits were familiar, but a lot was way out."

She looked up at the tone in my voice. "Okay, it's bugging you Bill what's the story?"

I sat down, and gave her a condensed version of what I'd written in my journal. "It was the dress I remembered. You know from the list."

"And, it might explain why your Aunt Rachel mentions a girl. But, do you think it really happened?"

"Probably not. I mean can you really imagine her dressing a little boy up? Or a little boy climbing into a dress? It's probably all manufactured stuff, but it was enough to wake me up!"

"I hear about folks that do that dress up stuff, and you do know there are people that live differently dear."

Once she said it, I realized I did know that. "You're right. But I still can't see it."

"I wouldn't worry, unless it happens again. Now come on, we've stuff to get done this mooring."

"Right."

# - # - # - # - #

That afternoon

I don't know about this. It feels kinda strange going to visit my 3rd grade teacher after all these years and not even know her. I wonder if she even remembers me. But, she did agree to talk to me. After all these years, I wonder. Let's the turn should be coming up soon. Ah, there it is. Now, the house should be along here somewhere soon. Ummm. Big tree, must be that one up there. Here we are. Oh boy, am I nervous, or am I nervous. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I walked up to the house, thinking how tidy the lawn and plants were. I rapped the old fashioned knocker and waited.

"Hello, you must be Mr. Wyman." Said a kindly looking lady about my parents’ age. Wow, she must have been young to have been my teacher!

"Um. Yes ma'am." I replied

"Oh, do come in. I've prepared some tea for us if you would like some?" She indicated a parlor.

"Yes please. That would be nice. 2 lumps please." Okay, I have a few sweet teeth. I get my exercise.

After pouring my tea, and one for herself, she sat down, indicating that I do the same. I may not remember her, but she could

"I'm sorry to bother you Mrs. King."

"Oh, you're grown up now, you can call me Val. I never did eat any children." I laughed at this a little nervously. "I'm always happy to see old students, and how they're getting along, but most do come and visit a little sooner, if they're going to. Now Stephy told me that you have some memory issues you're trying to get a handle on. Would you care to explain how you think I can help?"

"Well M.. Val" I corrected before she could again. "I seem to have no memory of what happened through MOST of fourth grade and anything before that. I've discovered I got into a special enrichment class in third grade along with two classmates and that this class continued into fourth grade but stopped for some reason. I was wondering if you knew anything about the class or who the classmates were." I looked up at that, and saw she had an interesting expression.

"Well Mr. Wyman"

"That's Bill please Val." I interrupted.

"Okay Bill. Before you started talking, I didn't think I remembered you. But, I did remember that class, and the three students! It happened my second year teaching. You say you were one of the three?"

"According to the school records I was. I was wondering if you remembered us, and why we needed the class and even who they were."

She smiled at that. "Yes, I remember the three musketeers. You three were inseparable. They'd tried in first and second grade, but it just caused problems."

"I don't understand, if we got along, why separate us?"

"Well, back then, we tended to encourage the boys to play together and the girls to play together." I nodded, as if that made sense to me. "But, you, Stacy and Karen were always together. In second grade, they tried splitting the three of you into different classes. After a few weeks, they gave up and moved you back together. You were not great students, but you were not trouble makers either. After seeing that, they decided to give me the three of you for third grade. Since you particularly seemed to be having trouble, I decided to check to see if you had a learning disability and were in need of help. Seems you were more interested in stuff outside of class. You and the two girls. What a trio." She sat back and took a sip of tea.

"Sorry to have been troublesome."

"Oh Bill. Troublesome isn't the term I'd have used, more not there some of the time. When you paid attention, I could see you knew what was going on, but the rest of the time. Well, that's why I wanted to get you tested. The girls seemed to pay a little better attention, but, with one of you tested, we went ahead and tested the three of you. I'm sure you know you are a very intelligent individual." At my nod, she went on. "Well Karen and Stacy were statistically just as intelligent. The three of you were shoulders above the rest of the class, and I couldn't figure out how to engage you. I'll admit to feeling a little overwhelmed at the time. Let me look some stuff up in my diaries." She got up, and went over to a book case. "Let's see, that would have been about... Here we go. I think this will have something." She pulled a volume off the shelf. "I'm a diary writer from when I was a little girl, and as you can see, by now they take up quite a bit of space. Every now and again, I pick one at random to see what I was thinking about and what was important 10, 20 or 50 years ago. Its fun." she said as she returned to her seat. I did wonder what all she had in those books. Looked like it might be quite a history in there. "I'm afraid some of my first diaries do show the age they were written. Now, lets see. I thought so; I was drawing pictures as well back then. I might just." she said as she flipped through pages "Yes, I did do one." She showed me of a picture of three kids around a table. They were all dressed similarly.

"That's a nice drawing. Do you have any me and my friends?"

"Bill, that's you with the shorter hair. You were always like that. Except when the girls were in skirts and such, you ended up in almost the same thing every day. I even asked your parents about it and they all said the three of you didn't coordinate. It was like you were three peas in a single pod - or maybe triplets. None of us could figure it out."

"Wow, that's amazing. You were a good artist too! Their faces are so life like!" She smiled at my comment. "Did we really look like that?"

"I believe so. It's been a long time, but I was pretty good about capturing detail back then."

"Do you think I could get a copy of that picture?" I said with some animation.

"I don't generally let these out of the house" she began to say.

"Oh, that's not what I meant. I've got a portable scanner out in the car with my laptop. I could use it. It's like taking a picture of your page."

"You can do that?" She had a question in her voice.

"Sure, let me run out and get my bag, and I'll show you." And with that, I was up, heading for the door and she was following me. I grabbed my bag from the car, and came back inside. "First I set up my Laptop, to get it going." I said as I then pulled out my hand scanner and a ruler. I'd found the hard way I needed it to keep my scans straight. After plugging it in, I said "If you'll hold your journal open, I'll show you." With that, I ran the scanner across the picture, impressed again with her drawing skill. "And, now you can see it here on my screen." And I showed it to her.

"My, this is so amazing. I barely get by with a bit of e-mail with my nieces and nephews." I looked up at her at that.

"No children?"

"I'm afraid not, I guess all of you were my children." She sounded a bit sad at that. "Well, we were looking into your class I believe, not the complaints about an old woman." At my apparently obvious reaction to that. “No, I am one, though, I'm certainly not dead yet. Let me see if there's something else about the three of you." she said as her voice trailed off, and she flipped through some more pages. "Oh right, you wanted their names. Just found a note here. Leslie Wyman, Stacy Hauptman and Karen Stewart. The three musketeers!" I was excited to get those names, but they didn't sound familiar. Let's see. Ahh, here's a note where I was complaining to myself that you three were missing half a day of classes twice a week."

"Wow, that's a lot isn't it?"

"By today's standards it certainly is. And, if memory serves, it was very unusual back then too. I don't recall anything else that took that kind of time out of classes. I'm sure it's a bit unique or I wouldn't have noted it."

"Thank you so very much! You don't have any other useful tidbits in that little black book do you?"

"You're still silly Bill. Oh, I wanted to ask, why'd you stop using Leslie? It's such a nice name."

"I don't know. As far back as I can remember, I've been Bill. It never occurred to me to use Leslie."

She'd been paging through her diary some more. "Here's where I noted with relief that you were all paying more attention in class and participating. But you were still in your own group at recess."

"That seems to agree with my report card. That shows I was doing better the second quarter on in third grade. I know you weren't my teacher in fourth grade, but do you have any recollection of me or us then?"

"That would be in the next journal. Let me quickly look through to the end of this and see if there's anything else and if not I'll go take a look." She sat there paging through the last bit of her diary and looked up. "Here's an interesting picture I drew toward the end of the school year." I looked at it for a minute, and then glanced over at the computer screen.

"The girls, they're the same two girls."

"Yes and the boy, with them, is you. I'd forgotten that you had stopped looking so much like triplets by the end of the year." At my questioning look she said. "Go ahead and make a copy of that picture too if you like." Needing no more encouragement, I did. Then I looked up.

"Umm. Which one is which? You don't happen to remember do you?"

"No, I'm sorry I don't recall. Let me go get my next journal and I'll let you know if I find anything more. Help yourself to the tea." I did, thinking about the changes in the two pictures. We were still together there, but while the two girls were still dressed in similar styles I was obviously different. Even after looking at the first picture, I'd not recognized me as being the same person. I wonder what, if anything, it means.

While I was lost in introspection, she was going through her second book. Eventually though, she did interrupt me. "Well, I found something. It was a note about your special class teacher. I was asking him if he'd test another student I had, and he was a bit abrupt saying that he'd finished with the three of you and wouldn't have any more time here at the school, and why would he want to test some other kid here. My note was surprised that someone who was entrusted to teach children would act like that."

"Wow. That is unusual I'd think. The memo he wrote about starting the class sounded nothing like that!"

"Maybe a Doctor didn't want to be bothered with kids any more or maybe his private practice took off or something. This reminds me that he never came back after Christmas that year. The district had to scramble to find a replacement. But, I think that'll probably be it."

"Thank you very much Mrs. I mean Val. This really means a lot to me."

"I always like to see my old students. It's nice to see when they've succeeded, as you apparently have."

We spent the next 20 minutes with me giving her the story of my last 40 years and my family. It was actually fun having someone new to brag about my kids with. My friends had long gotten tired of it I'm sure, but they are wonderful kids.

"Well Bill, that's fascinating, but I'm sure you have better things to do than spend all afternoon chatting with an old lady. You are welcome any time, but it is getting late."

I looked down at my watch, and said. "Wow, I'd no idea it was so late. I've had a WONDERFUL time. Thank you so much for helping me today."

"You're quite welcome Bill. It's been fun. If anything else occurs to me, how should I contact you?"

I pulled a business card out of my bag and handed it to her. "My cell number and my e-mail address are right here Val. I really appreciate all the help you've been. Those journals are quite amazing.

"Oh, I just thought of one more thing. Your class picture. I kept all of them over the years." She was almost young the way she jumped up and ran off into the other room. She came back with a larger album with sleeves. She obviously knew how to take care of the pictures. She opened it up, and turned to the second page. There we all were. I looked closely and there grouped together on one side.

"Wow, we look just like you drew us. Do you mind if I try to get a scan of this too?"

"Go ahead, but it's enough bigger I don't see how you will get it with that little gadget."

I got my laptop back out, and the scanner. It took two passes, but I thought I’d be able to merge them well enough. Just in case, I did another pass over the area where we were standing.

"You know, I've never seen the class picture before. I'd have thought my parents would have had one."

"Not all the parents got them, they were expensive. But I wanted something to remember each class."

"I'm very glad you did!" I said as I put my toys away again. "This has been a wonderful afternoon. I can't thank you enough. And, if you do think of something please call."

"I'd be glad to, and I'm glad I had something helpful. Now be careful and go back and take care of your family."

I left, and got my stuff put away, and headed for home, thinking about all I'd seen and heard. This was just amazing. Suddenly, a car came out of nowhere. I slammed on my brakes and...

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To Be Continued… Did Bill's dream mean anything? Should he even bother looking into it? What does it mean if it actually happened? And this special class? Half a day twice a week! What went on in that class! Will Bill find his former friends? Should he?
 
Author’s Note: Thanks for all of your comments! They really help me, and encourage me to keep going on this story.