Face Blind

The other day I stopped by a deli to pick up dinner.  As I approached the counter the young woman behind it smiled broadly and greeted me as if she knew me.

“Oh my gosh, how are you?”

“U-h-h-h-h… hi?”

After a split second it occurred to me that she did look familiar, but I still couldn’t place her.  She was quick to fill me in.

“It’s Lindsay,” she said helpfully.  “I took your class last fall.”

Oh, right.  “Hi.  Sorry about that, I didn’t recognize you without your glasses.”

These little embarrassments are happening with me more frequently lately.   I’m glad that the former students who recognize me seem pleased to see me, but I’ve had hundreds of them over the last ten years or so and I’m not capable of recalling all of them as much as I would like to.

Many instructors I work with are better at this than I.  I’m not sure how they do it.  I pride myself at learning the names of every student enrolled in my classes within the first month of the semester, but once grades are in the information magically vanishes.  I do remember a few of the standouts from over the years, good and bad, but most are lost to my memory.

This doesn’t bother me ordinarily, at least until I encounter the next student who remembers me better than I remember him or her.  I still feel rather badly about a run-in I had a few weeks ago on the last day of spring semester.  I was walking with colleagues after class on our way to grab a well-earned drink.  As we walked past a couple of students lounging on the grass next to the quad's artificial pond one of them waved and called out, “Hey, Mr. Scholar!” 

I stopped.  She seemed vaguely familiar, but so do half the students on campus. 

“Remember me?”  She was smiling expectantly.  God, this was going to be awkward.

“Sure!”  I paused a beat hoping she would take the hint and remind me how I should recollect her.

“I was in your Wednesday night class a while back, remember?”  No, not really.

Suddenly I was able to place her.  Not her name, but that of her boyfriend who took the class with her.  “Ah, right, you’re Dylan’s…friend.”

The girl pouted, “You remember Dylan’s name but not mine?”  She actually looked hurt.

I felt my face redden slightly.  “Sorry," I stammered.  "I’ve had so many students in so many places for such a long time.  I try, but I can’t remember everyone.”  Seeing my friends getting away from me I sheepishly excused myself and rushed to catch up.

“Alyssa!” the young lady’s voice called after me.  “My name’s Alyssa!”

I turned.  “Take care, Alyssa!” I called back.

Most encounters aren’t this bad.  I try to remember their names when I recognize their faces and play along gamely when I don’t.

It’s funny, though.  When I taught my first course as an instructor of record (that is, without the training wheels of a tenure-track professor’s supervision), I thought it would be like first love.  I vowed never to forget my students’ names, particularly when they were such a wonderful group who cheerfully forgave all my rookie fumbles that semester.

Seven years later during commencement one of the students walking the stage looked awfully familiar.  As usual, I couldn’t place him at first.  He was a stocky, nondescript looking boy with a close haircut.  Then it struck me.  He had been a student in my very first class.  Not a very good one it turned out; checking my records the kid finished with a D.  No wonder it took him seven years to complete a two-year degree.  Seeing him made me think about that first class, and it dawned on me that I could not recall a single name of any of its students.  So much for first love.

I give it my best effort, but I as get older my memory becomes less reliable.  But I do experience the occasional victory.

Walking out the door of the deli, wrapped sandwich in hand, I bumped into a young man I recognized.

“Hi…Trevor,” I said tentatively.

I must have gotten it right, because the young man smiled and said, “How’s it goin’, Mr. Scholar?”

I walked out to my car feeling quite pleased with myself.

© 2015 The Unassuming Scholar