Old Ghosts

...Was the subject of an email I received a couple weeks ago. I almost deleted it, thinking it was spam, but the name attached to it seemed somewhat familiar. To my surprise, as I began reading it, I realized it was a teacher I had in high school some 15/16 years ago....wow had that much time gone by already? (I'm dating myself aren't I!!)
I hope he wouldn't mind that I share this excerpt:

"So here's the deal,

I get this new kid in class today. Her name is Nicolette. So I go to type her name in my gradebook and I put Davenport for her last name. But it is actually Jimenez...I know that, I have her brother in class too. So where did "Davenport" come from? I sat there staring at the screen trying to get my aging brain to figure out the mystery. Finally it hit me. After 17 years of teaching and some 2000 students, I had come across the second girl named Nicolette. You were the first.

Now that the neurons were firing full throttle I could remember that classroom and a few of the students. It was a marine science class out in I building by the water in beautiful Waianae. We had a bunch of fish tanks in the room, went fishing with bamboo rods out back on the reef, and we did a lot of drawings of marine species...."

Not only was it was so nice to be remembered and contacted out of the blue, but his descriptions of what he remembered from my class stirred many things I hadn't thought about in a long time. Being out on the reef behind the high school, smelling the salt and sea life in the air, and hearing the waves crash on the rocks so loudly in some classes it was almost distracting. The way the dusty tiled floors felt under spongey slippers. The sharpness of the reef, and attempting to walk it with slippers sliding out from under you....



-For Mr. Wilson, if you read this, thank you for making my day and bringing back more of my Wai'anae childhood that I hadn't thought of in years.
This reconfirms how overdue I am for a visit back home. *off to expedia*