I woke up this morning – for which I’m always thankful nowadays – to find that everyone who knows him had posted a link to the story about M.P., Class of 1991, holding up a sign at the Super Bowl asking his girlfriend of 13 years if she’d like to marry him. She was back here in Hawai‘i, and although CBS didn’t show M. with his sign, our local affiliate, KGMB, showcased his romantic bold move.
The good news? She said yes. How could she not? He’s a great guy.
I first met M. when he was a 6th grader, 40 years ago this year, at the University Lab School. I taught half of that class as 6th graders. Back then, the class size doubled in 9th grade, so I taught that class again when they were freshmen. Then – and I’m sure they couldn’t believe their good fortune – I taught them one more as juniors, too.
The ninth-grade class was not an English class, per se. We were using that time with me to familiarize them with the new and amazing desktop computer – yes, this was way back. They learned enough BASIC programming to produce the classic “Hello, World,” and we had some fun with LOGO, a program with a little “turtle” that ran around the screen according to the commands you gave it. LOGO was a good way to learn about angles, and you could be artistic with it as well, experimenting with instructions that would have the turtle draw pictures as imaginative as your mastering of the commands – and accident – would allow.
The vast majority of the year, however, was spent using a word processor called Bank Street Writer to, you guessed it, write. English in very thin disguise, you see. My master plan.
And they wrote. A lot. For roughly three-fourths of the school year. They were good writers, as are all Lab School students.
I would save pieces that were, for one reason or another, examples of strong writing. One I held onto was a story by M. Unsure exactly why I was holding onto these pieces, I was convinced that I would know why when it came to me.
And come to me it did. When we all had the good fortune to meet up again on the first day of their junior year – a pleasure I did not expect, nor did they – I chose to read examples of their 9th-grade writing to show them what good writers they already were.
One of the pieces I read was the one written by M.P. It was a story about a baby – Little M. by coincidence – who is taking a bath. The detail was very good, and that M. was able to get into the baby’s head so realistically, so convincingly, amazed me. Remember, he was only a freshman when he wrote this.
But now to the heart of the matter. Have you ever wondered if you’re psychic? I must admit that from time to time I’ve been curious about my ability to see into the future.
The last time I saw M.P., maybe 20 years ago in Kaka‘ako, he was holding a dog in his arms. No, this I’d not foreseen, neither running into M., nor M. holding a dog at that meeting.
What M.was doing with that dog was taking it in to have it groomed. You know, when you have your dog shampooed and combed out, its nails trimmed, and generally being pampered. Well, they call that being groomed, right?
Fast forward to yesterday and the TV news story about M’s proposing to his longtime girlfriend.
I told you that happily, she had said “yes.”
Do you get it? When I saw M. 20 years ago, his dog was going to be groomed. And now M. will be a groom. Coincidence? I think not.
Furthermore, if you are as stunned as I am about that predictive gem and my powers stretching back 20 years, ponder this one friend. I read a story to M’s class 35 years ago about a baby being bathed, and further, furthermore, to add to the collective chill that now is running down all our spines – or is that a chill running down our collective spines? – he wrote that story two years before that, in the 1986-87 school year.
Amazing is it not, that very soon M. may be bathing a baby? And if it’s a male, I have a premonitory prickling indicating that the child’s name will be M. Jr. aka Little M.
You can see, I believe, why I now know that I am indeed gifted with extraordinary powers. They’re there, friends, implanted in my brain in all their shining glory.
I can now rest my questionings, my wonderings, my doubts, secure now in this concrete knowledge of my power.
Oh . . . wait. Cogitating upon a lot of what I’ve just said, could it be that it’s M. who is more the psychic one than I . . . ? Perhaps the respite from wondering and doubt was but momentary.
All right! It’s possible. So let’s split the difference then and agree to the fact that I and M.P., too, we fortunate two, are able to see into the future and know its preternaturally portended outcomes.
Lanning Lee 