Earlier this year I received a letter from some other members of my sizth grade class about getting toghether for a reunion. It's our 50th anniversary and our teacher, a wonderful woman named Celista Dow, is still alive and will be attending.

The letter included our class photograph. All those young faces! I recognized most instantly, though I couldn't always think of their last names and a few escaped me entirely. Fifty years is a good chunk of time, isn't it?

While planning this, a number of us have been corresponding by email. We've been asked to write up some memories and provide photos.

Memories? Well, sure, I have some, but they are mostly vague and jumbled. I don't know if they are 4th grade, 5th or 6th and most of them are just scraps, a few seconds of time recorded for no apparent reason. Some of my classmates, however, can do far better: not only do they remember specific class assignments, but they know who partnered with whom and who was first to stand up in front of the rest and present! I remember none of that.

It makes me sad to have lost so much. I stare at each face in that class photo and get little but shadows. A few fleeting glimpses, that's all.

I wish I had more.