My First Blog

Long ago, before there was any such thing as a web log, before there was any such thing as a World Wide Web, not quite before there were Personal Computers, but before everyone had one, I had this friend...

We were in high school. It was a typical high school, in a typical small Iowa town. We were Smart Kids(tm), which wasn't the key to popularity. We weren't reviled, but we were marginalized. And we became friends.

We lived on the same street. We hung out together, usually at his house, but sometimes at mine. We watched TV, played basketball in his driveway, teased his younger sister and brother, and generally did high school boy things.

We also wrote notes. Most years, we had some classes together, so we'd see each other, but we also wrote notes to each other. Sometimes three or four a day. We didn't have to work too hard in class, of course, so that was something to do. Our notes were filled with inside jokes, mocking references to our teachers and to other students, and general surrealism. That was my first effort at writing just because I wanted to write. Writing whatever was on the top of my head. In other words, blogging. But of course I didn't publish it for anyone to read. I gave it to Stu.

Nobody has ever gotten me quite as much as Stu did. I've been married to Mrs. Jogger for 20 years, but still there are some ways that I'm not as close to her as I was to him.

He went to school out of state, married his his high school sweet heart, and moved to Arizona, of all the Godforsaken places. So we don't see each other very much any more. The last time was before the first Little Jogger was born, more than 12 years ago.

Stu and his wife and are in Iowa this week. They came through Grandma Jogger's town, our old home town, and we had a picnic with them, their two kids, my four kids, Grandma Jogger, and her housemate. It was really good to see him. In some ways, we picked up a conversation that we dropped suddenly 25 years ago. In other ways, it was weird to talk to this stranger with our long-ago shared history.

I hope that we can keep in touch. It's easier now than it ever was. We just need to decide to do it. And we should. I think I'm going to try.