Reconnecting

Yeah, this isn't technical, but it is still a post!

I remember the first time I met a best friend. I was four years old. I saw another boy obviously my age walking on his tip-toes. Maybe he was trying to be taller. His nick-name was Scooter, and to this day I've got no idea as to what his name was. It was in his house that I remember seeing men on the moon live. I was five when I moved away. I saw him a few times but we grew apart. Eventually we lost touch.

I was six years old and just starting first grade when I met John. I think his last name was Oplenger. We became inseparable and I remember navigating my way across a mile to find his house. That was back in the 1970s when kids did that sort of thing. We made stop-animation super 8 films together. I was eight when I moved away but we stayed in touch for several years. Eventually our interests grew apart and we lost touch. I might have seen him a few times in my late teenage years, but I didn't have the guts to go up and talk to him.

We moved as I turned 16 so I switched high schools at the end of my sophomore year. I left the people I knew behind. I lost touch real fast with most of the people I knew back then. Thanks to Facebook I've reconnected with a few. Yet I wonder what ever happened to Mark, Steve, David, Jack, Donald, Katy, and many others.

After my aimless college years I drifted uselessly for a while. I lost touch with people I knew in my second high school and college. In 2000 thanks to Google and the now wretched classmates.com I started to reconnect with those old friends.

During my aimless college years I met a smart, pretty girl named Christine. She was the one I should have dated. Ha. The follies of youth.

I'm sure over time I'll find everyone I knew. I'm delighted to find these people and to see how their lives worked out. That even the craziest of us have turned into responsible parents seems like destiny. In return, no one seems surprised by how my life has turned out.

But the ones I really miss are the ones whose names I can't quite recall, or whose names are so generic that finding them seems impossible. People like Scooter, John, Christine, and others.

19 more posts to go!