Fifty years ago, I had a very close friend in the Navy. We met at Naval Air Station, Jacksonville FL. While there, he married his sweetheart, they had a son, and I was made godfather.
He reenlisted for orders to Hawaii and they departed Jacksonville Fl (where we were both stationed) a month before I departed to attend the Defense Information School where I trained to be a journalist/broadcaster.
We lost touch, oddly enough, but when I was assigned to a job in Washington DC, I used a locator to find my friend, but he was no longer in the Navy. Trouble was, he should have been as he had reenlisted for five years.
I have wondered about Mike all these years and have used Facebook many times to see if he might be on social media. Alas, it never panned out. I looked at every name that came up and there was no resemblance to my friend.
The last time I tried was last week.
Yesterday afternoon, I received a message on FB. Mike was looking for me and wondering if I might be his old friend.
Holy cow! We have exchanged a lot of personal information since that message. He lives in Phoenix but has sons in North Carolina whom he visits every year. One of those sons is my godson whom I have not seen since he was three months old.
I am, as they say, over the moon about all of this. I can't wait to speak with Mike and do more catching up. Both our lives have been much different from what we used to imagine, but we have both turned out all right.
Just sayin'....
