Therapy of a different kind

From 1973 to 1978, I taught English at Horace Mann Middle School, one of the then-feeder schools for Jefferson High School.

I had a three-year old when I started (now 46) and by the time I left, I was pregnant with Will--who's now almost 40.

So imagine my surprise this morning when we discovered--my physical therapist and I--that she was in my sixth grade class!  (She's not the therapist I usually see and had never seen her there before today.)

"You're Mrs. Pritchett!" she said--and made me feel for an hour like a rock star.  "I still have the books you had us write!  I'm going to bring them next time and show you."

She recalled names I'd forgotten and together we reassembled a chunk of those years when I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.  We laughed about things one or the other of us remembered, and she was able to tell me what became of some of the students.  All the while, she was pressing on my back and making it feel better.

So I will get to read some forty-plus-year-old writing that a shy little girl wrote in my class!