Long Lost Friends
Sort of a “where are they now?”, this is a list of some friends that I once had - some good friends, some just acquaintances, that I’d like to hear from. I made a token effort to Google them but didn’t find much. Yes, of course, if I had the time, I could probably hunt them down like rabbits! But I always hate that first question, “How in the world did you ever find me?” and then, if I tell them truth, it is always a little scary to them since they realize that my mind is perhaps more cunning than most of the people on the FBI’s Most Wanted. Always a tough hurdle to overcome when you first get back in touch with someone. So, I figured, I’m busy anyway, so I’ll just post this and see if anyone contacts me. Another friend of mine did this on his blog and I thought it was a pretty cool idea.
I’ll update this from time to time.
From University Park Elementary
Bowen Garrett - I was with him the day Ronald Reagan was shot. I’ll never forget him yelling to me from down the street, “The President has been shot, The President has been shot”. Well, the Garrett’s had an ant farm and I kept thinking all the way to his house that he was yelling “The present ant has been shot”. I had no idea why he was so excited or what he was talking about.. all this hubbub over an ant? And how can an ant be shot? I figured he meant with a slingshot or something by one of his crazy brothers who were always bothering us. He took care of my pet parakeet Peachy when I left for Saudi.
Johnny (Coyner) Gilger - was my best friend. Only he knows what I know. We used to hang out every second it seemed. We had forts all over the place - in trees on the Melbourne Golf Course and in drainage pipes that ran underground. Why did my parents let me crawl under the Melbourne Golf Course in drainage pipes? I have no idea what they were thinking. Maybe they never knew. We even had a complete “detective” office buried behind food storage containers in his parents basement - and his parents didn’t even know it was there. My worst memory is getting a belting from Dwight (his dad) when I was like 10 years old. My parents didn’t use belts (just their hands), so when Dwight caught us fishing with his fishing poles - fishing over his truck and pulling the weighted hook over the other side of the truck, scraping huge guages of paint along the way - he called my parents and they told him to give me the same punishment as Johnny. Wha? I was betrayed! Seriously, I more than deserved it, but you always remember that first belting - especially by a professional belter. I think I got two swats and broke into hysterics. Johnny got about 20 and didn’t flinch. Man, was I wimp or what?
Mike Nichols - Mike was into dirt bikes I think before anyone else. He had a cool cousin, Karen (a redhead) who I was seriously in love with. Mike lived in Crown Heights and we did a bunch of stuff together.
Christine (Christina?) Terranova - Overall, a cool person and a nice girl. I think we went all the way from K to 6th grade together. We were on “safety patrol” together in fifth and sixth grade. I doubt she even remembers me. Heard she got married a long time ago. I even vaguely remember that crazy sea world trip where it rained and the park turned into lakes. UPDATE 10/2/2006: Was at a friend’s house the other night who brought out his Mel High yearbook to show me his crazy high school picture. I started flipping through the pages and saw a picture of Christine of all people. I could pretty much see that I would never have had a chance with her anyway if I had stayed in the states.
Jenny Sasso - Proving it is a small world. Jenny was “my first kiss” (in second grade) and my only kiss for a long, long time after that. (Sad, but true!) We also went through all the grades together and then her family even moved to Saudi and we visited them once. Of course, we were both teenagers then, forced together for the sake of our parents, so it was about as awkward as being interrogated by communist guerillas: you are always afraid you will say the wrong thing and be shot. Never did get back in touch after that horrible episode.
From “The Neighborhood”
Candice Hodge - almost got re-acquainted with her when she was working at Space Coast Credit Union. Can’t even recall what happened but we lost touch (again) and that was that. Might still be roaming around Melbourne or Brevard County for all I know. A very nice girl who everyone was always trying to hit on - not me! She was just my cool next door neighbor. My parents still swear she used to spy on them kissing on our back porch. Good for her!
Gaylin Reed - the guy used to terrorize us! His dad owned like, a bunch of stuff, and I thought for sure he would kill me one day. Of course, we used to call him “Gaywad” and “Gaylord”, so maybe we deserved it. So help me find him and get him back for making me take “shortcuts” on the way home from school — shortcuts through drainage canals and Florida overgrowth! Ha ha. Seriously, I’ve always noticed that the folks who you feared in school turn out to be pretty cool folks later on. But then, again maybe he’ll still push me off the swing into the dirt!
From Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia
Nicholas Bozadzis - FOUND! Nick googled himself and found my blog and sent me an email. How cool is that? Turns out, as I suspected, that he is still into computers beyond the reach of most mortal men. He said he wouldn’t hack my blog because I wasn’t the enemy, so I’m not sure how long I’m safe. He’s out in Austin, TX now with his wonderful wife, Penny and three small children! Even though I’ve never met Penny, I’m sure she’s wonderful if she married Nick. Right? Right? But because of Nick, I now have to add two more names to the roster… Arnold Lillich and Mikhael Loo!
Arnold Lillich - Okay, Arnie, where you be at? Arnold and I weren’t super good friends or anything, but we were in scouts together. In Saudi Arabia. Yes, they have boy scouts in Saudi Arabia. And yes, it can be dangerous. Case in point? I remember getting lost in the desert with him on a Boy Scout camping trip - for hours. We could have both died. We ran into nomads and a desert fox (sleeping). We only had one canteen with us and we used up our water early on. We miraculously made it back to camp. It was supposed to be a compass exercise that we obviously failed badly. We were lost for probably five or six hours. When we got back, no one had even noticed we were missing. Great scout leaders. They thought we were making up the story and just laughed it off. I wonder if Arnold remembers like it I do. I seem to remember him being more scared than me.
Mikhael Loo - - FOUND! On LinkedIn. So, he’s doing well and we can keep in touch via LinkedIn. Mike is still a great computer geek raising a great family.
Rahilla Abbas - a very nice girl that I failed to get to know too well. I’m sure she is doing very well today.
Wanda “Sissy” Holtzclaw - Boy, did I really like her. Everyone always picked on her - I have no idea why. I thought she was very nice, and very cool. Always wondered what happened to her.
Audrey Alexa - - FOUND! She’s a star runner now and runs triathlons for fun. Yeah. That’s what I said. And she’s on Facebook with all sorts of cool updates about how she makes the rest of us feel like total toadstools. Must get out and start running again. (Played saxophone next to her. In fact, she was the reason I took up saxophone. She lives in Canada and I had an email address for her about ten years ago - she was married with three children. Super! I’ll have to post my “me and Audrey” picture sometime - it shows what a total geek loser I really was back then. Why she agreed to it, I’ll never know. Too nice, I guess.)
Mike Markee (from Philadephia) - Okay, so here’s a secret about me few folks know. I, with the help of Mike and his pipe-smoking dad’s VHS (and BETA!) bootleg video collection, memorized the entire movie of Superman. Yes, we even made an audio tape of the movie, that I’d listen to in bed - which actually now thinking about it is way hip before it’s time. I might do this with Office Space sometime. Anyway, Mike was a cool guy despite his scary yearbook photo which rivaled only mine in its geekiness. And I know he was a huge Eagles fan.
From Stony Brook
Kenneth Quarshie (i.e. The Quarshmeister, The Quarshinator) - a man of few words. Heard the FBI recruited him for something and so he may be in deep, deep, deep undercover. Hopefully still playing penny and nail poker - and chess! UPDATE: Ken is still in the Queens area from what I hear - and playing table tennis and chess professionally. Or semi-professionally. Found his name on all sorts of leader boards. I’m… impressed? Is that the right word?
Michelle Dawn Williams Last I heard married as Dawn Marshall. Won’t say too much here, except that I always had the highest respect and admiration for her. Too bad I abused it like a fool. That would make a good post here about what NOT to do when a pretty girl lets you sit next to her on a a long international plane ride. Good advice for my boys as they grow up. Fathers, always tell your boys your stupid mistakes. That way, their mistakes will be, at least, different. Anyway, Dawn’s a great girl from Tulsa, Oklahoma who got married a long time before I did. Also, a beautiful singing voice. She has a brother named Todd who, I think, never fully trusted me. I can’t say that his suspicions were unfounded.
Jack Raplee — FOUND!! - Check out his blog at http://foresthillschurch.blogspot.com/.
H. J. Hahn - a legend of Long Island and one of my personal heroes in high school. I have no idea why and I’m sure he even has less idea why. But a cool guy none the less - unless he’s been arrested for something dastardly in which case, I really never knew him.
Scott Cameron - H.J.’s partner in crime and one of the few upperclassmen who was cool enough to keep from being annihilated from his classmates. A crazy guy, too.
Frank and Karen Jordan - my history instructors - they were awesome!
Bill Cooper and Mike Fine- I was too geeky to really be close friends with them, but they were the ones who got me into music more so than anyone else, especially Bill who introduced me to Chicago, Boston, and Yngweigh J. Malmsteen. How can you not appreciate that? It was only a short leap into Megadeth and SOD before I was transformed. And even very recently, I just bought Chicago’s XXX (30th album - awesome!). Wonder if Mike ever became a pro musician - he was pretty good. I remember he could play the opening to Ratt’s “Lay it Down” flawlessly - at least to my then untrained ears - not an easy task!!!
Joel Werkema: Joel was my roommate in my 11th grade year. He absolutely hated me, not without cause. Joel came from a very well-to-do upbringing. He didn’t seem to like my cavalier way of dealing with stress, which was, as it still is, ignoring it. Even more than my Korean roommates, Joel was a serious study man. Of course, I recently learned that he is a big-time banker for the Federal Reserve (uh, don’t get me started) and working for liberals. But I still love him. He recently had twins, so now the famed wearer of Chess King is now a father. Congrats! I’d send him some baby clothes, but Chess King doesn’t make an infant line of clothes. I think he *knows* I tried to get in touch with him to say hi, but he probably still thinks I’m a dork.
From Camelot Music in Orlando (actually the old Winter Park Mall)
Lynda Liggett - my store manager and a cool person. Ran into a district thug for Camelot music in O-town (actually now it is called FYE - how lame is that???) who said she had just quit a few months before. She was a cool manager. One of the few in my employment history. I was probably a terrible employee for her, but hey, at least I knew music. Real music. Not like Barry, right Lynda?
Mike - Man, I wish I could remember his last name. He lived in some ritzy gated community in Lake Mary and was always fun to hang out with. “Is this the bookstore?”
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How are you doing? I can’t believe I came across your blog. I was actually trying to refind Jack Raplee’s blog when I “Googled” you. I wasn’t sure, but when I came across a couple of other SBS name, I knew I got the right man. Good to hear from you and that you are doing well. I am a homeschooling dad too. I love reformed theology- with a Baptist slant(!). I can’t catch up though. I am expecting number 5. I am in the ministry. The Lord’s been good, to me here in Milwaukee. But anyways good to hear from you.I am so happy to hear that you are walking in the Lord’s light. May he continues to lead you. Where are you brother?
Steve Chu