Throwback Monday

I noticed that the bus was sparsely populated this morning. Had my
breakfast at the Tasty Donut. Mostly the same crowd of working men
who come in every weekday morning. One of the patrons looks out of
place, dressed like a golpher with pants pulled up to his boobs.

As I'm eating my croissant with egg and plastic cheese, I'm thinking
back on the events of yesterday. Not events, really, but AN event. I
was looking for something, a book I think, in one of my boxes, and
found a class photograph from 1971. I was in the first grade. I
look... disturbed in the photo. Perhaps a bit mentally challenged,
and so I can begin to understand why the school officials thought
there was something wrong with me there.

There is a man in one of the pictures, and I'm not sure who he is.
There are no names on any of the pictures, and he doesn't look like
the principal I remember. And my first grade teacher was a woman who
drove a Thunderbird with the round windows on the side. A rather
vivid memory that makes me question whether she was real. What was
her name? 

I look at the first grade picture again. I recognize and remember
Julie. She had the same birthday as me. There's Darrin, for whom I
would develop a secret crush a few years later. Ah, and Kelly, who
went to our church. She's dressed in a rather 1940's-looking dress.
Very conservative, but she was a good Irish Catholic girl, so that
would be why. I liked her, and got teased for it.

And then I notice. Jay. He's missing. Certainly he was there. I have
another class picture from 1977, and I check there. He's not there.
Julie is there. Kelly has moved on... but Jay is missing. And Jeffrey
is gone as well, although I already know he doesn't exist, which I
still find surprising. I know they are there. I saw them. I talked
with them. But... no. They were never there except in my mind.

I have this core belief that reality is all manufactured in our minds
anyway, and perhaps for me that is doubly so.

No Jay. No Jeffrey. And no first grade teacher. What was her name?

And then I remember her name. It was Mrs. Real, pronounced "Ree-AL."
Or so I thought. Kind of an odd name, considering I might have
manufactured her in my mind.

Mrs. Real. Really.