I was lost and now I am found
By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here
I didn’t know I was lost until I started getting e-mail messages from reunion.com, the finder of lost souls. Some days, I get as many as four messages from reunion.com telling me that eight people are looking for me. Only eight?
I’d sure like to know who those eight people are, but my Scottish tendency is not to pay $5 a month to find out. The latest information I received offered that price as a $3 bargain, cut from normal $8 a month.
Seems to me if those eight people really wanted to find me, they’d look in the phone book, or even read this column because I’m not hiding. I even list my post office address at the end of each column. I used to publish my personal e-mail address, but I began getting unwanted messages like those from reunion.com, so I retreated into privacy mode, figuring if someone had to take the time to write a letter to me, they were genuine people. I was not disappointed, my mailbox runneth over.
If reunion.com can find me through an e-mail address, surely those eight folks can find me in plain sight. When I opened my e-mail this morning there was a message saying: “Big News, William.” The big news was that those same eight people were looking for me. Oh, well, I didn’t have a column subject in mind until I read the big news.
That big news told me I could find old co-workers, old high school buddies, college classmates, even grunts from my Marine Corps days.
I recently purchased the latest copy of my old university’s alumni book and so help me I only found three of my old classmates still alive. One of the three is my wife. We met in journalism school.
My old college roommate was listed, so I called him where he is living now in San Francisco. He told me he was 90 years old and not in good health. I decided I wouldn’t call the other person.
The teaser information from reunion.com said I would find out if the class clown from my high school days was now the CEO of a major corporation. I can answer that. I saw him years ago at my 50th high school class reunion in my hometown in Florida. He was still the clown, but was not a CEO. He was a hired hand at the local paper mill. My high school sweetheart, I learned at that reunion, was now an inmate in an insane asylum. The high school football team quarterback hero and heartthrob of all the girls was balder than I am and obscenely obese.
The last time I tried to look up the Marines I had enlisted with so many wars ago, I found all of them in a cemetery. I still keep in contact with some old newspaper co-workers from my daily newspaper career, even reporters who worked for me as an editor. Most of these contacts are just exchanging news, but it is depressing news because it is mostly about obituaries of other co-workers. That happens when you grow old.
But for those mysterious eight who are looking for me, I am still alive and plan to stay that way until God hits me on the head with a baseball bat. Keep looking and if you really want to know, I love this job. I love my wife. I love my seven children. I love my 21 grandchildren and six great grandchildren. What more could a man want?
(Bill Duncan is not anonymous. He can be reached by writing to P.0.Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)