So, back to our “friendlies.” And my theory, or maybe I should call it my “what if” conclusion, to our Bennett School exploration.

My chatterbox exploring partner always exchanges email addresses with the kids we come across. We usually receive a “hi, it was nice to meet you response.” If truth were to be told it’s not that they want to know us or keep in touch but that we’re such a curiosity they can’t resist — a forty-something woman and a fifty-something woman resplendent in men’s coveralls  (we have flight suits for summer) doing what teenagers and twenty something’s think they have an exclusive right to do—must be amusing to them. I don’t imagine we look funny, I KNOW we look funny, but as I’ve always said if you can’t laugh at yourself who can you laugh at.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the older of our two “friendlies” was full of dire warnings about our next stop—Hudson Valley Psych.— but on the other hand was also longing to see it for herself. Only fear seemed to be stopping her. This prompted my dear chatterbox companion to email her the next day and ask her if she would like to join us.  Chatterbox, (I think this will be my new name for my exploring partner) asked me if she should invite the kid along and I was like sure, go ahead ask her, she’s sweet. However, since our return to Baltimore I have discovered that Chatterbox has a group-organizing gene and lately has been asking the whole world to come along. I have become a little aggravated with this recently discovered gene, as I am not a tour guide, and I am not prepared to share the many, many, many, many — you get the idea— hours I spend on research with people I don’t even know.  We have reached a fragile truce at the moment, but I know it won’t last— her gene will reappear, as genes tend to do— and I’ll become annoyed. But in the interests of what we’re doing we’ll continue to try and reach a peaceful agreement.

Now to the “what if.”

We never received an email response from our Bennett school friend. Mmmm you may ask. Well if you didn’t I did. It was a little odd. Well for the purpose of this post it was a little odd.

I enjoy imagining stuff, mostly because I worry the world (particularly kids) is forgetting or not learning how to imagine, so I like to let my imagination go wherever it wants — hell, it’s fun if nothing else. Imagine the world if J.K. Rowling never imagined Harry Potter, or from my era imagine no Enid Blyton and The Magic Faraway Tree—what an awful world without such fantasy. I mean I could make a broom into a horse in a heartbeat when I was a kid and I want kids to still do that. But do they?

And imagine if our Bennett School  “friendlies" were in fact the ghosts of girls who had attended the school. All I’m saying is, here we were in a girl’s school and here we were with two girls following us around, and one had an incredible knowledge of the entire history of the place. Seriously, really, how cool. What a fun thought to imagine them as ghosts—“what if?”

It’s OK I’m quite sane, I know they weren’t ghosts. You don’t have to stop reading my blog because you’ve decided I’m crazy after this post— I’m not — I’m just saying “what if.” Think about the words “what if” they’re almost the same as “if only.” Life shouldn’t be about “what if” or “if only” it should be about anything is possible— and isn’t it fun imagining what could be/is possible? Be it fantasy or not.

Think about it. I’ll be back with the Hudson Valley Psych. Adventure—it’s full of “what ifs” — including maybe getting caught.