Rediscovering an Old Friend – The 'Plus' Side of Facebook

Those of us who are parents of teens often complain about how much time our kids are wasting in social media sites and how much personal stuff they share with each other.

This is an old story already, but what do we, their parents, need these sites for? To find the kid in third grade who called us names or the boy whom we beat in the spelling bee? Well, yes and yes. But I think there is more to it than that.

This past week, a woman I knew when I was in college found me on Facebook. Her name is Jackie, and I knew her because her brother and I were very close friends in college, and I often visited the family home. She passed on my information to
Tony, her brother. It's a good thing, too, because Tony drastically changed his name, for artistic reasons, I am assuming, as he has been a dancer and choreographer for many years. I could never have found him.

In college, I minored in theater. I did some acting, some behind-the-scenes work, and some performing in musicals, which is my first love. It was in one of those musicals, "Sweet Charity," that I first met Tony. He was exceptionally talented and had a much bigger part than I did.

For the remainder of my junior year and part of my senior year, we hung out a lot together, sometimes with others from our student theater group. We went to the same parties, sang and danced to the same music, shared a lot of good times.

I remember that we went to see the movie "Funny Lady," the sequel to "Funny Girl," and I sobbed uncontrollably at the end, but Tony was there to comfort me and walk me back to the dorm.

Senior year, I had a miserable winter break home in New York, so I went back to college early and spent time at Tony's home with him, his sister, and his mother.

Later that year, it was apparent to Tony that he might be drafted into the Army and end up in Vietnam. He was very angry and very worried. He was a conscientious objector and not willing to fight there. Fortunately, I had a minister friend who met with Tony and was able to provide him with the paperwork he needed to get conscientious objector status.

Why does any of this matter? It turns out that Tony is leaving his current home in Boston and moving to San Francisco shortly.

This will give us a chance to catch up and relive those youthful days once again.

Maybe we'll sing together, maybe just talk. In any case, I am hoping he will finally tell me what secret he seemed to have way back when – that is, if he hasn't posted it on Facebook!