Making a Connection

Computers and the World Wide Web have made connecting with friends an interesting venture. Many years ago a family friend gave this note of encouragement and vintage coin to our childhood neighbor. At the time Lisa was just a little girl and the friend an adult. This month she found the note and coin in an old jewelry box and made contact with my sisters and I on Facebook (resulting in my post on Family Ties). Well, I got curious where our old friend disappeared to. The last time we knew of his whereabouts he was in Florida planning to buy a sailboat, but I also knew he had family in the Minneapolis area. I started a search which led me to Classmates.com where I typed up an email only to have it ask me to become a "gold member" in order for my friend to read my email. Baaa! Evidently Classmates is pretty good at coercing people to send them money because they sent him an email notifying him of a message from "Martha T." Finally having an unusual first name has payed off! He didn't pay to receive the message either, instead, after trying to remember our last name, he looked us up in the phone book online. Yesterday I got a phone call from the Philippines where my friend has lived for the past four years. We had a wonderful conversation and when I asked if the call was costing him an arm and a leg, I heard him smile as he said, "Well, it's cheaper than flying."