Yesterday I was talking about children's literature with 
Heaton. The conversation started...well, I don't exactly remember. I know we were talking about the Anne Emery book that I just got from half.com., I remember that. And then we were talking about Cherry Ames and the Three Investigators and Judy Blume and Paul Zindel and The Pigman and My Darling, My Hamburger and then Heaton asked me something about one of those books that I couldn't remember and I said, "I don't know...I mean, I haven't read Paul Zindel for 25 years."
I haven't read Paul Zindel for 25 years.
I haven't read Paul Zindel for 25 years.
I haven't read Paul Zindel for 25 years.
Nope, no matter how many times I say it, it still doesn't make any sense. How can I have not done anything for 25 years? Or, to put it more clearly, how can anything that I remember doing have been done by me 25 years ago?
To be fair and accurate, I probably didn't stop reading Paul Zindel till I was 13 or so, making it really only 23 years. Whew! I feel young again!
But it has been 25 years since, for example, I fell off of the sliding board at recess and broke my hand. I remember telling Mr. Zimmerman that I was hurt. I remember him telling me that I was fine and to just to back to my desk. I remember making him let me call my Dad and my Dad taking me for the X-ray. I remember getting the cast put on and I remember, 5 weeks later, my mom cutting it off because I had managed to wiggle my obviously healed hand completely out of it. I remember that I kept the cast and that it still fit my hand for several years after that. I think that the cast is still in my old bedroom back home...unless my mom finally got tired of the smell and threw it away when I wasn't looking.
Speaking of my old bedroom back home, I found this picture, 