Finding an Old Friend

The Internet is a remarkable way to find someone. I was recently in Florida visiting someone I hadn’t seen since college. We had a mutual friend Chuck with whom we had both lost touch. A quick Google search found this lost friend in Colorado and supplied an address and phone number. I called the number and left several messages, but never got a return call. So I sort of forgot about Chuck.

Just last night Chuck called me, having been in Mexico for the last 4 months. It turns out he is retired and spends part of each year in his house in Puerta Vallarta. Nice life, I said. So we had a lengthy discussion of the last 35 years – that’s a lot of time to cover. We talked about mutual friends and what has happened to them, including the unfortunate death of two of our friends.

One interesting aside in the Internet search was the emergence of a neo-Nazi type with the exact same name, also from Michigan, who had been killed while evading the police in 1998. I worried for a brief time that my friend has been other than I had known him to be. It turns out that my friend Chuck had once been detained when re-entering the US because immigration also mixed them up. Fortunately my Chuck is still alive and well.

I wangled an invitation to visit him in Mexico (or Colorado) and extended an equal offer of free room and board if he should come east.

I still think of Chuck as that cute smart-assed guy with the navy blue Corvette convertible and the fast motorcycle. When in fact, he is now 60 years old and probably has aged much as I have. It really is weird to see people after so many years have passed. But I am truly looking forward to a reunion with Chuck!