Shades of Scrooge

A dream---or was it? 
       For some reason, I was in a beauty or hair salon, home based.  The proprietor was evidently caring for my eighth grade English teacher, Mr. MacCartee, now of advanced age.  He had been one of my favorite teachers, in old age then, or so it seemed.  He was short in stature, probably not much more than five feet tall.  He was of Scottish descent, and had never married, as far as I can recall.  I'm not sure if he even drove a car, and it seems he lived in an apartment, maybe in Schaghticoke, or possibly in Mrs. McClure's attic apartment.  I remember sending him a Christmas card that year, at least, because I admired him so much.  His was the  class  which served as my introduction to intellectual discussion, not of the  textbook variety, though what I remember may have been in private conversation.  I sat in the front row in his class, and he sat not behind the desk, but in a chair at the front of the room.  He was not a strict disciplinarian, and English was not a subject which captivated much of  the large class, so many who sat toward the back of the room spent the time passing notes, I suppose about their real or imagined social lives. 
    He raised the issue one day that all people are driven by self interest or personal gain.  I think it was a spinoff of the meaning of the vocabulary word altruism. He proposed the concept that to act in an altruistic manner makes those persons feel good about themselves, and so is self-serving behavior.  I felt a little shocked because I was still in my "religious period," and said I didn't think that was true, that I believed some people acted out of true concern for others.  To my surprise, he said he agreed  with me, that he had just been postulating a theory that some upheld. I believe this was the first  time that I'd been exposed to the idea that people could present a controversial idea without bias or prejudice.  He was a learned, kind, and educated man, and looking back, I think I must have loved him for that.
   In my dream, at the home of the woman who ran the hair salon, he was half-sitting, half-reclining, on what we used to call a daybed, with a coverlet drawn up around him.  I looked at him and met his gaze; his eyes were clouded over, with no signs of recognition.  I continued whatever business I had with the proprietor, someone I knew but since I wasn't getting my hair done, I don't know why I was there.  He started to get up from his reclining position, and I felt appalled: I hoped against hope he wouldn't be clad in pajamas or, worse yet, underwear.  I needn't have worried.  He was wearing khaki pants and a bright blue polo shirt.  As he walked in my direction, he said my name, with a question mark.  I said yes, that's me, and as we hugged, he asked if I'd recognized him, which, in truth, at first I had not.  I  said it took me a while because I'd never seen him before without a suit jacket, which was true.  He laughed a little, and reflected on how times had changed.  I'd thought at first that the sadness I felt was because he'd grown so old, but during the course of the dream I realized the sorrow was for myself as well.  No wonder he had difficulty recognizing me---the last time he'd seen me I had dark heavy hair falling to my shoulders and smooth, unwrinkled skin. 
   I woke myself up by uttering out loud, "Time is funny."