In Search of an Old Friend

I'm looking for a friend I haven't seen since 1981. If you can share my story to help me find him I would greatly appreciate it.

I was at home yesterday, doing little of nothing online and on Facebook, looking at some old messages. I happen to glance up at the top of the list and I saw ‘other (4),’ which told me there was a file there with 4 messages in it. So I said hmmm, and clicked on the tab. What I saw about knocked me outta my chair.

It was a message from an old friend from high school. One I had not heard hide nor hair of since 1981. See, we were really good friends all through high school and about the time the friendship took a turn for the better, he graduated and joined the navy. He was a year ahead of me so I had to stay behind to finish school. We kept in touch some, as much as you could back in the day. A letter here and there… yeah, you know, a letter, hand written… on paper!! A phone call now and then. He came home in 1981 for his grandfather’s funeral. After that, I never saw him again. I’ve thought about him often over the years, always wondering what became of him. I had no way of knowing he had spent all this time in the Navy.

Well, the message on Facebook started with ‘I don’t know if you remember me…’ Oh my gosh, remember him??? If he only knew. He went on to tell me he had finished with his navy career and had moved to a place near Houston. He said he just wanted to say hello for old times sake.

I have spent the last two days looking for him. Naturally, the first thing I tried to do was reply to the message. That didn’t work so I searched for his profile on Facebook. Seems he deleted that. I looked in the white pages, I searched county records online, mylife.com and every free site that came up when I googled ‘how to find someone.’ I found that he had made a profile on classmates.com. On that site it tells you when someone joins including the time of day. I saw he had joined and logged in and has never been back. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was looking for me. I logged in to the new Myspace to no avail. I even tried looking for a naval database, nothing there either.

I have reached the point of total exasperation. I hope he didn’t think that my lack of response was lack of interest.

In all the records I searched, I found no previous address, no phone records, no arrest records, no property deeds…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Like he doesn’t exist. 

I hope someday soon he decides to look me up again, I’ll certainly be more aware of my messages from now on!