Every Day is a New One

This little quest of ours is certainly making sure that the days are distinctly unique. I know that every day is different, but sometimes the differences can become muted so that they start to blend into one another. Here in Indiana, we are in our 19th straight day of plus 90 degree heat. But the one thing that makes each of our days unique is that just about every day, I get to speak to a classmate. The other day it was Bill Gullone. Now Bill is not among the not located, but remember, that although his picture does not bear a NOT LOCATED label on the website, unless we confirm he is where he is, we can't be sure. Without the class database from the committee, I am just going down the list from the yearbook Besides a lot of the info from the 40 attendees is different now anyway. Linda finds 'em, I contact 'em and so it goes from there. If you went to the 40, the chances are better but not certain that you will be where it says you are. If you went to the 30, less likely, and so on. Even for the 40, it's by no means a foregone conclusion. I also don't know too many people who include contacting the reunion committee as part of your moving kit of address change notifications either. I'm just as guilty as most.

Anyway, Bill ended up being a cabinet maker and is about now 50 miles west of Corning, up north of the Pennsylvania border sitting in the middle of 100 acres. We talked for about 45 minutes during the time I was supposed to be contacting about a half dozen more Wayne Valley folks. Well, sometimes it just works out that way. There is a vacuum for class news. Everyone wants to know about someone and everyone knows something about someone. Facebook is a reasonably good place to have those encounters but not everyone is on FB and not everyone knows everyone from the class that is. We try to send every facebook classmate suggestions for the others, but sometimes for people who are new to the format, getting 60 or 70 friend requests is like moving into a new home and finding 60 or 70 representatives of the welcome wagon knocking on the door while you're trying to unpack.AAAArrrrgggghhhh. We did that to Ted Dobson and Scott Shepard. Oops. Since then, we've tried to take a less enthusiastic approach.

Dave Spae, who I remember from the Anthony Wayne Days of 7-6, I was in 7-3 and we both had Al Piaget and Dorothy Tunis for BLOCK, asked me for a list of everyone who had passed away. I told Dave that I wasn't sure we were done finding everyone but that I'd send him a list of what we had so far.  It's 55 so far. It was 54 when I sent the list to Dave. Then I had to write him back to let him know about Cliff Recanzone, who all indications point to having died in Daytona Beach back in December of this past year. If you exhaust all your normal sources of information and you don't find any record of anyone after a particular time period, it's time to head to the SSDI (Social Security Death Index). I hate it when that happens, and it disrupts my life every time we find someone else who has died. There but good fortune go............After chiding him, Dave changed his Facebook picture from the sad dog to one from a happier time. Even though I know what he looks like now, when I see him in my mind's eye, he's still wearing black jeans and a leather jacket. And he's still sitting in the back of the bus cutting up. and probably smoking, although no one smoked in the back of our school bus, did they?

Quite by accident, as part of our research, I saw photos of the induction of a younger version of Doug Itjen into the Wayne Police Department. He was the spitting image of our Doug who was in one of the photos.

Oh, and by the way, despite what my snit of righteous indignation caused me to blog the other day, after all this work, I would be a fool not to go to reunion to reap the rewards of the work and see you all in person.  I still hold to the rest of what I said though.

So who will make my day unique later today when I start working the phones again? I'll tell you tomorrow.