Columns

Finding old friends gets easier with time

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published June 26, 2007

His head of hair was still full, but much whiter; the telltale mustache was thicker; the profession was the same: Rich Sudol, fire inspector.

The profile jumped from the pages of a Spring Hill Fire Department booklet.

I had last seen Sudol in '92, just before he quit as the fire inspector in a village just outside New York City. I wrote the story about his departure. We were each still doing what we loved. I called him up.

After Sudol left New York, he worked in fire safety in West Palm Beach and Broward County before moving to Tarpon Springs. He joined the Spring Hill Fire Department about a year ago.

In the last 15 years, I've lived and worked in four states before moving to Florida. It seems that's where most everyone ends up.

My encounter with Sudol is part of a surprising recent pattern. Over the past year, I've been reconnecting with folks, mostly by accident, sometimes on purpose, that I haven't seen or heard from in almost two decades.

In our mobile society, we don't stay in one place for too long. We move from state to state as job opportunities arise. But 20 years ago, when you moved, if you didn't leave a forwarding address or phone number, then you lost touch. That happened to me a lot after college.

Now, there's the Internet, e-mail. With this new electronic frontier, we have fewer excuses; we can run but we can't hide.

I don't want to run anymore. Maybe it's part of getting older, but I find myself eager to reach back into the past for good memories, to salvage friendships discarded in the pursuit of ambition and family.

Others seem to have the same urge. That's how an old college friend, Marian, found me.

We were freshmen in college back in '84.

I got married and, after graduation, left Washington, D.C. She stayed. After not thinking about her for almost 20 years, a few months ago I began searching for her. I found her name among political contributors to a Maryland senate campaign and a firm where she worked.

But I was a few steps behind. I never reached her.

Then one day my phone rang. It was Marian. She decided to look me up after seeing someone who reminded her of me. Finding me was easy.

She has three sons, one in college, and she lives the busy life of a business consultant. When I e-mail her, she responds from her BlackBerry. She's usually at an airport somewhere waiting to catch a flight. Some day her three sons will get a chance to meet my son and daughter.

I was still reveling in that renewed friendship when it happened again. This time it was Wesley, a Guyanese immigrant who had founded a small newspaper, the Caribbean Sun, which I wrote for while I was in college. I hadn't spoken to Wesley since 1988.

About eight months ago, as I stood in a Caribbean grocery store, I picked up a free newspaper and opened the pages to see him smiling back at me.

Of course, I called.

For years, Wesley had worked for one of those multinational organizations before moving to Florida a few years ago. He now publishes the Caribbean Sun newspaper out of Orlando. He and his family live 90 minutes away. That's a short distance to travel. There are 20 years of conversations about Caribbean politics and people that we haven't had. I have no more time to lose.

Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813 909-4602 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 26, 2007, 07:42:50]