Dreams (along with another autumn photo)

I took this photo on the river last weekend. It’s the reflection of a sycamore in the water. I was looking at my calendar today and realized that I’ve only had a day and a half off in the last three weeks. I’ve been going to the gym regularly, at least four times a week, which helps me keep my sanity. Thankfully, the next two weeks look a little less stressful! We’ll see.


I found myself as an adult, back in school. Teaching the class was Mr. Briggs, my fifth grade teacher. Mark, a friend of mine from the 5th grade, was also taking the class. When the first class was over, I went up to talk to Mr. Briggs while Mark waited at the door. I was shocked that he was the splitting image of JJ, a friend of mine. I wanted to show Mr. Briggs an article that I’d published about my 5th Grade experience, but I decided it would be better to wait till the class was over. I then remembered that my parents had brought his house when we moved to the Wilmington area. I asked if he remembered me and he said he did. I told them about my parents and that they still own that house, even though they brought lot next door and over the decades, it has grown considerably. Mr. Briggs then asked me about my brother (who was a grade behind). He said he felt my brother would go into banking or finance. I told him that he was an engineer and whom he worked for and Mr. Briggs seemed happy to know that he has done well. I never knew that he knew my brother and felt slighted, like he was more interested in what my brother had done than me (but then, I was probably one of his worst students). Then he said something about the group of boys, which included me, who came to him from Mrs. Forbes 4th grade class, who had driven him crazy and out of elementary school teaching. I corrected him saying that it was Ms. Freeman, not Mrs. Forbes. He insisted he was right, even though admitting he don’t always remember everything. I told him that I’d recently found my 4th grade class photo and I knew that I was right. I then woke up. It was 5:30 A.M.

After nearly a month of not dreaming regularly, it seems that I’m back in the pattern of regular dreams. I’ve woken up the last three mornings thinking about dreams I’d had. This morning, I had three dreams. I didn’t write down the dream that woke me at 4:30 AM, but I remember this one and another brief dream that I was having right before I got up. This dream was interesting in that I haven’t seen Mr. Briggs since I was a student at Bradley Creek Elementary School. After the 7th Grade, Mark and I didn’t hang out much with each other and, if I remember correctly, he graduated from high school on the extended plan. The last I’d heard about him, which was a few decades ago, he was working as an operator at the same plant that my brother works at. Although I haven’t written an article about my 5th grade experiences, I wrote several blog posts about that traumatic year (I was in his class the spring of ’68). However, several years ago when I was writing a newspaper opinion column while out living out West, I wrote about a friend who’d died, who had survived Bataan and the Philippine campaign. As Mr. Briggs had been a survivor of the same campaign and had been a Japanese POW for three years, I tried to find him. (He quit teaching elementary school the next year, after which those of us who hung out together began bragging that although the Japanese couldn’t break him, we could!) I was unable to locate him and assume he may no longer be with us. I’m not sure what the Forbes/Freeman exchange was about—except that I’d recently been thinking about Forbes Field (which is where the Pirates played before Three Rivers Stadium).

Follow the links for my 5th grade stories: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
For my picture of Ms. Freeman’s class, click here.