Lost Friend Found

My family moved from Sandy, Utah to Wisconisin Rapids , WI when I was fourteen years old.  Instead of starting my first year of high school as a Jordan Beetdigger, I would be in 9th grade at West Junion High School.  It seemed like a big disappointment at the time.  Turns out it wasn't so bad.

That first day of school, for some reason, I had one of my Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks with me.  I guess that's how much of a dork I was.  In Mr Pittman's earth science class I sat at a table next to a kid who introduced himself as John Douglas.  Fortunately, he was just as much a dork as me.  He noticed the rulebook and made some offhand comment about also playing D&D.  We probably spent a good portion of that first class geeking out.  Then it turned out we were also in the same American government class, same English class, had the same lunch hour.

We became and remained really good friends until my family moved from Wisconsin to Arizona a few years later.  In fact, John was the last friend I visited before moving.  He still had one of my D&D manuals they day we were leaving.  I had to get it back.

The Summer after moving to Arizona I came back to visit Wisconsin for a couple of weeks and by happy coincidence, it was the same week of John's wedding!  One of the coolest things we ever did together was for his bachelor's party.  John's younger brother threw it for him.  Mostly, I think, as an excuse to convince Mrs. Douglas to turn a blind eye to him drinking.  Only four of us were there.  John, me, his brother and a friend of his brother.  They broke out the booze and sci-fi flick about a radioactive monster.  Neither John nor I drank, we weren't interested in the movie, so we ditched his party.

We drove from his place in Vesper into Rapids, stopped by Copp's to talk to another friend who was working.  Drove around a bit more then heading back to Vesper decided to stop and climb the water tower.  It was a beautiful clear night where we were, but there was a pretty intense lightening storm off on the horizon.  It made for an impressive lightshow.  We just watched it and talked.  For hours.

Then I went back to Arizona.  We lost touch.  That was easy to do in the days before e-mail and Facebook.

Sometime, I don't know, just after 2000 ... like 2002 or so, John somehow found my e-mail address and we got back in touch for a while.  I was in Manitowoc, he was moving to Minnesota.  We actually lost touch again pretty quickly.  Turns out that's easy to do even with e-mail.

Every so often, though, I'd wonder what John was up to and Google his name.  Last week I finally found his online presence.  I commented on his site, got his email address again and have got briefly caught up.  Maybe we'll stay in touch this time.