Desperately Seeking Susan
by
, 09-16-2017 at 04:42 PM (509 Views)
08-23-2017 -- Get to visit with Ms Cummings again! I find myself at a grade school, just about as classes are going to get out. Somehow I've been told this is the school that Ms Cummings is now teaching at by someone on Facebook, and I am trying to find her and meet with her. It is the same rough school layout as Marshall, probably in the same district, but there are six rows of classrooms instead of five, which means probably one per grade, plus the couple of kindergarten class rooms. Anyway, it is about 2:45 in the afternoon, and a bell has just rung, and the teachers are starting to release their classes.
I'm wandering around, trying to glance at any teachers among the students who are starting to fill the halls, and attempting to see any teachers still in their class rooms, and a couple of the kids are following me around. The odd thing is, most of the classrooms have disappeared. A row of classes that should have four rooms, only the first is there, then I am just looking at an empty field. I mention it to the kids, and they are commenting on how there used to be four classrooms there, just a few minutes ago, and they have no idea where they went. But while I am trying to figure that out, I hear a vaguely familiar voice, and turn to see a teacher walking down a hall that looks familiar, and might be my fifth grade teacher.
I hurry to catch up with her, and overhear a staff member call her Ms Yourshaw, so I realize I've got the right person. I try to call out to her, and she turns to me slightly, but disregards me almost immediately. She has bandages covering her face, and seems to be hurting, and is fairly cold and seems kind of uncaring, and when I tell her I used to be a student of hers, she doesn't seem to care at all, and tells me to go away, as she starts to climb a stairway to the second floor of the building that we are in. I call out that I can go away, if that is what she wishes, but only after I let her know that she was the best teacher that I ever had! She kind of laughs that off, but actually starts to pay attention when I list creative lesson plans and the like, and actually starts to try and remember me.
She says something trying to identify me with a specific time period, and I bring up incidents of that time, including her taking me out for a sundae at an ice cream parlor at Brookhurst and Orange avenues (I think that was where it was, though I can't remember the name of the place. Did Smucker's ever have its own ice cream parlor chain? [Have since managed to remember it was probably called Swenson's]) and the year she lost a half a year to injuries from the auto accident, and she is actually starting to remember me, and cheer up a bit. Slightly worrying, but she invites me to join her in going to a local bar and having a drink, and while I don't plan to have the same exact drink, I figure I'll get a Midori Collins.
As I am following her out of the school, she runs into the principal, who is greeting her, and asking her about when she is going to be home, and asking about who I am, and she mentions me as a past student who, the last time she saw me, was trying to sell my copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon to get some funds (something I do not remember at all <ggg>). As she walks along, Ms Cummings slips on something and falls to the ground, and suddenly the principal is trying to control the scene around her, and kind of rolls her around to a position where she can apply a jerk and kind of align her back, damaging her own, in the process. Ms Cummings returns the favor, and cracks her back, then the principal starts asking me more questions. Indication is she rooms with Ms Cummings, who seems to have gotten jaded and depressed, and she is excited to see her showing a little bit of interest from her again. She actually seems to expect to see something romantic going on. I don't have any similar expectations, not that I would be particularly opposed to them. (Always had a little bit of a crush on her.)