There’s little denying we live in the age of social media.
For better or worse, it’s never been easier to track down old classmates or
acquaintances, with that trend only likely to continue. Interestingly, I literally
joined Facebook at around 3:00am one morning after I had an epiphany regarding
the title of my book while lying awake in bed. I still don’t consider myself a
heavy Facebook user, but I do actually check in somewhere before or after I
check the daily news feeds.
Gradually, my friend base grew and as people that I needed a high school yearbook to remember “friended” me, I started to think of the people I’d actually like to find. The most prominent was a friend from high school named Larry. We had been on the yearbook staff together and we had become quick friends after we met. Working on the yearbook could have easily been classified as the limits of my creative ability, but Larry is a true artisan. He fashioned murals for the school walls that live on in infamy in the pages of our high school memorabilia. I lost touch with Larry right after high school when I relocated to New Hampshire and had heard nothing from or about him since.
I figured I start putting some of my high school contacts to good use and pinged any other members of the yearbook staff that I could find on Facebook. (Obviously, he didn’t turn up when I searched for him directly.) Turned out that someone had crossed paths with him in the prior year and knew where he had worked. They provided his work phone number and when I reached a voice-mail service it specifically gave an option for Larry’s mailbox. I left a message… and didn’t hear anything for probably four-to-six months.
Turns out Larry didn’t work there any longer, but after all that time his former boss checked the voice-mails one day and forwarded my contact information along to Larry. Out of the blue, he finally reached me and we enjoyed a few catch-up phone calls and emails. I was so happy to hear that Larry had continued to express his artistic abilities both in traditional and secondary employment avenues. (Ironically, Larry actually was on Facebook, but even though I had Minnesota ties, his profile didn’t come up in my search. I think they need to hire a few more people from Google.)
My next visit to Minnesota didn’t happen for many months after that. It was going to be a short trip, primarily to attend my nephew’s high school graduation party. I figured since we’d primarily be in the Minneapolis area, we’d try to connect with as many old friends as possible. Well, it was a whirlwind three days where we had lunch on Friday with Pam Hawley and Chris Herman, graduation party on Friday night and family on Saturday. The next high priority visit was with Brian Blashack, a friend I’ve had since we started school. Brian’s a great guy and he recently mentioned how some of his co-workers bust his chops about still having a friend from grade school. “Who does that?!” they ask in bewilderment. Well, apparently we do, so it was important that we saw him and his wife, but equally important their three kids. Since everything but Sunday morning and early afternoon was accounted for, it seemed like it wasn’t going to work out as his daughters had a big soccer match that day. I didn’t think about it for more than a second before realizing, “I don’t care where we get to see you, so we’ll come to the soccer match to hang out and chat.”
That didn’t leave any time for Larry, which of course I was bummed about. After having finally connected with him after all these years, it seemed a shame not to get a face-to-face meeting in while we were back in Minnesota. Alas, I figured it would have to wait as there just weren’t enough hours in our visit. So on that beautiful Sunday morning as Meghan and I chatted with Brian and his wife Jodie, something in the distance caught my eye. It was a booth, of which there were many as this was a big tournament, that had a banner, “Larry’s Rare Air.” I couldn’t believe my eyes as I walked up to see Larry sitting right there, in the booth, of all places at this soccer tournament. To say it felt like serendipity was an understatement. I probably wasn’t close enough to more than half of the booths to be able to read anything on them… but this one was one of the closest to where we were standing. So even though we probably only had 20 minutes to chat in-between his manning the booth and us needing to leave for the airport, it was infinitely more than I thought we were going to get. It was a truly great weekend that couldn’t have been planned to go as well as it did… even though most of it was planned!
It’s such a great story and it does have a tie into writing, but I’ll end this entry here with a promise to post part two within a week!
Gradually, my friend base grew and as people that I needed a high school yearbook to remember “friended” me, I started to think of the people I’d actually like to find. The most prominent was a friend from high school named Larry. We had been on the yearbook staff together and we had become quick friends after we met. Working on the yearbook could have easily been classified as the limits of my creative ability, but Larry is a true artisan. He fashioned murals for the school walls that live on in infamy in the pages of our high school memorabilia. I lost touch with Larry right after high school when I relocated to New Hampshire and had heard nothing from or about him since.
I figured I start putting some of my high school contacts to good use and pinged any other members of the yearbook staff that I could find on Facebook. (Obviously, he didn’t turn up when I searched for him directly.) Turned out that someone had crossed paths with him in the prior year and knew where he had worked. They provided his work phone number and when I reached a voice-mail service it specifically gave an option for Larry’s mailbox. I left a message… and didn’t hear anything for probably four-to-six months.
Turns out Larry didn’t work there any longer, but after all that time his former boss checked the voice-mails one day and forwarded my contact information along to Larry. Out of the blue, he finally reached me and we enjoyed a few catch-up phone calls and emails. I was so happy to hear that Larry had continued to express his artistic abilities both in traditional and secondary employment avenues. (Ironically, Larry actually was on Facebook, but even though I had Minnesota ties, his profile didn’t come up in my search. I think they need to hire a few more people from Google.)
My next visit to Minnesota didn’t happen for many months after that. It was going to be a short trip, primarily to attend my nephew’s high school graduation party. I figured since we’d primarily be in the Minneapolis area, we’d try to connect with as many old friends as possible. Well, it was a whirlwind three days where we had lunch on Friday with Pam Hawley and Chris Herman, graduation party on Friday night and family on Saturday. The next high priority visit was with Brian Blashack, a friend I’ve had since we started school. Brian’s a great guy and he recently mentioned how some of his co-workers bust his chops about still having a friend from grade school. “Who does that?!” they ask in bewilderment. Well, apparently we do, so it was important that we saw him and his wife, but equally important their three kids. Since everything but Sunday morning and early afternoon was accounted for, it seemed like it wasn’t going to work out as his daughters had a big soccer match that day. I didn’t think about it for more than a second before realizing, “I don’t care where we get to see you, so we’ll come to the soccer match to hang out and chat.”
That didn’t leave any time for Larry, which of course I was bummed about. After having finally connected with him after all these years, it seemed a shame not to get a face-to-face meeting in while we were back in Minnesota. Alas, I figured it would have to wait as there just weren’t enough hours in our visit. So on that beautiful Sunday morning as Meghan and I chatted with Brian and his wife Jodie, something in the distance caught my eye. It was a booth, of which there were many as this was a big tournament, that had a banner, “Larry’s Rare Air.” I couldn’t believe my eyes as I walked up to see Larry sitting right there, in the booth, of all places at this soccer tournament. To say it felt like serendipity was an understatement. I probably wasn’t close enough to more than half of the booths to be able to read anything on them… but this one was one of the closest to where we were standing. So even though we probably only had 20 minutes to chat in-between his manning the booth and us needing to leave for the airport, it was infinitely more than I thought we were going to get. It was a truly great weekend that couldn’t have been planned to go as well as it did… even though most of it was planned!
It’s such a great story and it does have a tie into writing, but I’ll end this entry here with a promise to post part two within a week!
No comments:
Post a Comment