This weekend we are holding our yearly class reunion. We will attend a home football game Friday and a dinner Saturday evening at the former high school, which is now the Perry Township Educational Center.
Last Friday I answered a call on our home phone. The lady on the other end informed me that she had my cellphone. I glanced at the table beside me and saw it resting there. I told her that. She then told me that the phone had my name on the screen and my home number and cell number.
I checked with my wife, Lyn, and she was in possession of her cellphone. I again explained to the lady that we had our phones. I hung up and my cellphone rang. It was the same lady, and she was still trying to discover who owned the cellphone.
I explained to her that we had just been talking. She then told me that she was at work at the Whiteland Orchard, where the phone was found.
After that second call I thought that maybe the phone belonged to someone I knew or someone pretending to be me. I decided to make a trip to Whiteland.
Upon arriving I asked the lady if she had discovered the owner of the phone. I asked her to call my phone, hoping that the name of someone I knew would show up on my screen. That didn’t work.
As the lady was going through other functions on the phone, I saw a name on the screen that I recognized: Shirley Zimmer. The lady told me that Shirley had been in earlier. We were almost sure that it was her phone, but we couldn’t call her because she didn’t have her phone.
I have known Shirley since grade school. We didn’t attend the same elementary school, but our mothers were in a club together. We went to junior high and high school together. Our work lives even connected as we drove school and charter buses. I have seen her at some of our class lunches and reunions. I knew her parents, and one of her sisters was in my sister’s class.
I asked the lady to scroll through the list of names and watch for a person named Wilma. I was fairly sure that Wilma and Shirley were sisters. I then asked her to call Wilma’s number.
When Wilma answered her phone, she didn’t say “Hello.” She said, “Why are you calling me?” She asked that because at that time she and Shirley were in the same house.
The orchard lady explained why she was calling.
I’m glad that Shirley got her phone back and that I didn’t have someone trying to pilfer my identity. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of my former classmates this weekend, especially Shirley.