I have never wanted to go to a reunion, like a high school reunion. I have never wanted to see how everyone has changed.

I do know people who love to go to reunions.  Not long ago I received an email from someone who had just gone to her 40th high school reunion and was so happy to have been there.  I don’t recall that her actual high school days were lovely, but reconnecting was joyous for her.

There are a few people from high school that I would like to see. I remember their names and their faces with great fondness, but they could have fallen off the Earth for all I know.  Aglaia and Crysanthe, where are you now? Even your names are like poetry.

I would love to see some of my high school teachers, but they wouldn’t be there any longer. I would love to see some of my elementary school teachers as well. I won’t wax sentimental and name all the teachers I would like to see. I will just say thank you.

But then I get to when I was a teacher, and some of the kids who have stayed in my heart, and I would love to see them and see how they’re doing, and I will tell you the ones who come to mind right way:

The Poetry Boy. I don’t remember his name this moment. He was in eighth grade when the whole class and I were blessed with him. He really taught us to love poetry. I am sure he is a college teacher somewhere and undoubtedly a poet.

I remember Lee Gauthier.  He was in seventh grade, yet he was older in a day when kids were not held back, yet, somehow he had been. Lee was not always easy to have in class — why must a teen-age boy spend his day glued to a seat? — and yet he was such a good kid. I remember I kept him a little happy by emphasizing Lee, as in happily (happi-LEE, merri-LEE, odd-LEE.) Whenever there was an adverb, I used it to my advantage. I believe it was Lee who first named me The Warden. Here was this supposed tough kid, and, he was so kind. He would give in to something I asked him to do, and he’d announce: “Nobody would ever want to hurt her feelings,” and he kept the class kinda happy and respectful.

I could name a lot more students that I would love to see, but I will just mention one more — Freddy Finch.  Freddy made my heart sing when he was in class. He had been arrested when he was in sixth grade. Is that possible? The police had made him wash the floor with a toothbrush. I know that Freddy could really really have been somebody. He’s the one I wrote to Bill Cosby about, but never got an answer. Then, after about six months, it was discovered that Freddy was supposed to be in another teacher’s room. Freddy really belonged in my room, but the computer had spoken.

Freddy and Lee kind of remind me of Huck Finn by Mark Twain. Like Freddy and Lee, Huck was not “respectable” as a boy. He didn’t have the benefits Tom Sawyer did. Huck lived in a hogshead, as I remember. But he certainly was his own person. The boy that Mark Twain modeled Huck Finn after grew up to be a justice of the peace.  May Freddy and Lee have also found stability and happiness.

From my life in Sacramento, I would love to see my friend Wendy Paulus. She is long gone from there too. Soon after I left, I heard that she had left her husband and children and gone off with a neighbor’s husband. I never knew which neighbor.  How unhappy Wendy must have been, and I didn’t know. I have to tell you that Wendy was one of the biggest hearts in the world. She once sewed matching dresses for Lauren and me. And when I divorced, she stayed my good friend.

I would love to see Dr. Tuckey in San Francisco. He was a chiropractor who was so good to Lauren and me. Lauren was about two. He let us come without an appointment. I remember he charged me only $2.00 and then he would always give Lauren a half dollar and kiss her stomach and make her laugh. And there was Norman, my landlord, who was friends with the Superintendent of Schools. He helped me get a teaching job in San Francisco and he taught me that the real object of real estate was to make good places for people to live.

The trouble with not living in the same city all the time is that you don’t know what’s become of the people there.

Do you think of some people you would love to see again? Or, at least, to know how life was for them after you parted?