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[duncanjyc]

Above picture: - https://pixels.com/profiles/michael-bish

Finding past connections - Volume 12

I recently passed reconnecting with 100 people (I am not sure who it was, most likely Michael from my grade 5-7 period). Upon reflection, I am more focused than ever on not completing this task (reconnecting with ~450 people) too quickly. Although I have thoroughly enjoyed this process and reconnecting with so many great people, it is now becoming not so much a chore but a large-time sponge. As a result, my frequency of blog posts will probably slow down to once a week or so as I will have a lot less to report.

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Michael, #100 connection, was a very good friend starting in Grade 5. I think it was because he was “out there”, which for grade 5, was pretty early. Then again, it was swinging London around 1970. He was the first kid I knew to smoke (all sorts of things), date and generally have a party lifestyle. (more on that later).

A highlight for me was playing 5-aside indoor soccer against the other grades that first year. The competition was in groups of years (5-8) and (9-12). To even it out a bit, the older grades were at a 2 goal/year disadvantage when playing younger teams. As we were the youngest grade (there were 4 teams per year), we started off 2, 4 or 6 goals ahead when playing the older grades. Our team strategy was pretty simple: don’t give up goals. Our team consisted of Michael as our lone attacker; three of us on defense and, as I recall, the star of our team in goal (Eric?). I believe at the time we averaged about 4’ 6” and 80lbs – except Eric who towered above the rest of us ants. When we played the older grades we were at a significant size disadvantage, but we were good defenders. We won our first two games (something like 2-1 and 6-4) without scoring before we faced a grade 7 team.

In this semi-final game, they scored with a few seconds left to tie the game at 4-4. We expected some sort of 10 minute overtime with us being up 1 goal, but we were told it was a sudden victory game. I would love to say we scored, (Michael did come close) but we lost, oh well.

When I reconnected with Michael, he is now an artist in California and, amazingly enough, married to someone from our grade. He was married to someone else before reconnecting a few years ago with Nancy and all is now good. You can find a link to his art at the top.

How did I find Michael? The school posted an article about people who met their spouses at the school and Michael and Nancy were featured. From there, Facebook was my friend.

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Searching for Moira – Part 5…?

So, I was done to one possible person to find Moira: Fred.

I easily found his Facebook page and took the gamble to “friend” him as well as send him a message. I later found out that messages are only delivered when you friend someone. As a result, the message sat in his mailbox unseen and unopened.

But most interestingly, I saw from his profile that he had cycled across Canada – twice, at my age! That got me thinking, maybe I should try this? Time to get some information. As I said earlier, I joined Toronto Bicycling Network and their Facebook page: what better place to ask questions. I wrote a post about what was involved in cycling across Canada as an older guy.

That day I got several responses including one from the TBN’s president who wrote a very comprehensive response. Near the end of it he wrote, “you should really talk to Fred, whom I have copied here.”

And then Fred responded with an even better post that answered most of my questions (while raising others). I took the opportunity to ask the subsequent questions and we corresponded a few times over the next few days. And then, he accepted my friend request and answered my first message – do you know where Moira is?

As an aside, I am now adding more and more cycling hours to my weekly exercising with the goal of getting to about 500/km/week (~310 miles) – minus the hours I spend rowing. 50-50 that I cycle across Canada next year.

Back to Moira. Fred response: “Yes, her address is <xxxxx>.” It was Thursday night (three weeks ago – 3+ months after I started looking). Can it be true that I found her?

I try several ways of corroborating if the address was correct but none work. What do I do? Send a letter? What if she has moved? Show up at her door – kind of stalking?

I wake up the next day and knew what to do. I spend a couple of hours composing a letter that explained why I wanted to trace her and a short form of the efforts that I undertook to get to this point.

I drove to the address and knocked on the door. A very short Asian woman answers the door – not Moira. Crap; is this the literal dead end? After a short explanation of my search for an old colleague, I ask, “I am looking for Moira <xx> and I believe she used to live here 10 years ago. Any idea where she might have moved to?”

“I have lived here for a long time. Moira doesn’t live here,” she says with a slight smile on her face. “She lives next door,” pointing to #2.

I control my eagerness to run over to the next door… Knock, knock.

Moira answers the door, looking more or less how I remember her only some years older (same here). We had a slightly awkward conversation for 30 minutes over the door stoop and we exchanged life stories.

And that is how I found Moira. I have reconnected her with the Alumni group from my first job. I doubt that she will show up at the next event in November as she didn't seem too eager to do so. Oh well, I tried (and then some).

I should add, I subsequently contacted a few people that helped me in this search and told them that the search was successful. I owe a box of chocolates to the researchers at the Toronto Reference Library who inspired several of the steps I have covered. You can reach them too at https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/contact/

Now, how do I find Tommy, Andrew, Martin, and all the other people I have been tracing? I hope it isn’t this hard.

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Present count of people I have connected with: 112

[duncanjyc]

Finding Past Connections - Volume 11

I am very conflicted these days. I work for a company (Northern Block) that is promoting a new technology that will make it very easy for people to own their own personal data, through a blockchain-based technology called Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). I truly think the technology and its implementations will change how people can protect their data. For example, no more usernames and passwords and the eventual removal of phishing attacks. So, on that hand, I am fully on board with data privacy.

On the other hand, trying to connect with people has shown me the joy that can be found reconnecting with people, but only if you can find them. In many cases, people were in plain sight – Linkedin, Facebook and occasionally directly with a Google search. I will have to admit that when I first started looking for the ~450 people I had listed, I found a lot of people in clusters – meaning that if I found one person, they had the contact information for many others. This was certainly true for my schools, and the larger organizations that I had worked for.

However, for the few people that I knew who were marginalized or didn’t have professional careers, finding them was difficult. And, with SSI, find these people will be even more difficult.

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Searching for Moira (Continued from Volume 10) :

I was able to find several other Toronto Biking Network magazines from 1999 to around 2014. From these I found a few interesting facts:

1. Moira was there from 2001 to around 2011 when she penned a resignation letter and noted that a Fred L. was taking over. Need to find Fred!

2. There was a head of memberships for quite some time – Eileen. With her name was her phone number.

3. There were a number of long-time volunteers listed and I wrote down their names including a few I thought might be helpful. Ron especially.

Eileen; As a membership coordinator, I doubted that she would direct me to Moira. However, I did check that her number was still listed in the online white pages, so I phoned. It rang a few times before a friendly voicemail message from her said she would phone me back. I left a message that if she could forward a message to Moira to phone me back that would be great. Doubt that is going anywhere.

Ron. I found he had left the TBN but had his own website for mountain bikers and a Facebook listing. I “friended” Ron and within minutes got a response! We connected and we had several points of discussion:

1. His website to promote his books had some broken links and some small but important improvements for him to make to get more uptake on his digital books about cycling in Ontario.

2. I bought the mountain bike book. Its reviews of rides were very good and I have started to use it regularly.

3. He didn’t recall names in general and didn’t know Moira. But he would connect with a few other people to see if they could help me. I waited...

To be continued.

[duncanjyc]

Finding Past Connections - Volume 10

Every once in a while a surprise happens. Last week Dr. Dave, a colleague of mine from my first job (he went back to medical school), reached back to me (some weeks after I had left his office a message … and then another). He texted me that he has been super busy with his practice and volunteering at vaccination clinic(s) while I gather also welcoming his 3rd grandchild. One of the funniest and hardworking people I have ever worked with, I am more than willing to wait to reconnect with Dr. Dave. At this point, we are tentatively scheduled to talk in 4-6 weeks.

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Sometimes it is just too hard to pick up the phone and call someone out of the blue. One case is a classmate from University, Arthur.

I wasn’t looking for Arthur but another classmate (also Art), said that I used to hang out with the other Arthur (news to me). So, out of curiousity, I searched linkedin in… nada. Maybe I had the name wrong – I figured there were 4-10 variations on the last name spelling possible, but I seem to remember one because it didn’t make sense given where he came from, Regina, Sask. I searched Facebook. Nothing. Name could still be wrong. Mr. Google provided nothing.

I recalled that the family owned a bowling alley and a car wash (weird prairie conglomerate?). I searched for these with the name I thought it was and nothing came up. I took out the name and an article from 2010 about a historic bowling alley being demolished appeared. Always curious about historic buildings, I opened the article to read about Arthur being interviewed, mentioning a steer getting loose and running down one of the lanes. "The Leader-Post actually interviewed my father and I remember him making the comment that we wouldn't let [the steer] bowl because he refused to wear bowling shoes." Sounds like the family. I had the spelling correct, by the way.

I then researched the name again with the bowling alley name and a telephone number appeared. Honestly, I don’t recall much about Arthur, so why reach out to him? Can’t think of a good enough reason.

==================================

The search for Moira (part 3, I think)

I searched Google for Moira (first and last name) + Toronto; Nothing, again - no surprise there. I then clicked on images and up popped an old Toronto Biking Network magazine. That is interesting.

I scanned through the first few pages before I reached the directory of volunteers on page 9, and there was her name and an email! Oh, wait a second, that is a generic TBN email. Not very likely that this email works.

I found a way to open up other TBN magazines on-line (randomly putting in dates in the existing format from the first issue found) and she was mentioned in all the publications I found up to around 2011, when a self-penned retirement letter was written noting that she was passing on the role to a Fred L. Unfortunately, he too used the same email, confirming that it wouldn’t be directed to her. Also, I did find a couple of group pictures including one with the acknowledgment, 'Moira’s sister.' The black and white pictures were so grainy I couldn’t tell if it was her or not. Could be… but since I hadn’t seen her in 30+ years, who am I to tell.

So, what to do next? Well, at least I knew she was still in Toronto 10 years ago, biked, skated and still had her maiden name. Getting closer.

To be continued.

[duncanjyc]

Finding Past connections - Volume 9

Finding out news from old sources

Some volumes ago, I explained that I was looking for my high school friend Tommy. One of my other high school friends, Billy, gave me some new information that neuters a few of the paths that I was exploring – which is great; less wasted time. The new information is that Tommy’s brother John only had one son, Christopher, not the names I thought could be related.

Armed with this news and the name of John’s wife, I am confident we will find out what happened to our high school friend. As for the other searches, they are still in limbo.

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Sree was one of my very good friends throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s. We had met at i2, a Dallas-based company and quickly found common ground. We had a skeptical view of politics, similar views on economics, and his wife was also from Canada. Besides, we both worked in marketing and shared a common interest in how to position our company and its products. We recently reconnected via LinkedIn and last week had one of the most fun long conversations about a wide swath of topics. It is conversations like this one and earlier ones with several people that make me keep coming back to this project.

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The continued search for Moira (Volume 8):

So I picked up the phone and dialed the other number provided by the Reference Library, the number of Moira's possible father. Again, no luck. Dead end 4b.

At this point, I started to get a little creative. I remembered that she talked about going to a catholic school. I thought about phoning each of the possible schools in her old neighbourhood, but soon realized that none would provide me with any information. I then searched Classmates, a popular site for high school directories. Again, no luck with any of the schools in the area (it didn’t help that the catholic schools changed names during this period). So, I turned to the three possible churches in the neighbourhood and called each one, hoping that one of the pastors would be able to help. Incredibly, one volunteered to look through past parishioner’s lists, contact the other two churches and post a sign for their parishioners if anyone knew of the family. That was three months ago. I guess no luck. Dead end #5.

I also contacted the internal recruiter that hired me to find out which universities/colleges he had gone to when recruiting Moira and if he remembered which one she came from. He never returned my emails. Finally, I tried the universities in the area to see there was any mention of her anywhere. Nope. Dead end #6

Three weeks went by with no results and I thought I would try to pull a new rabbit out of an old hat.

To be continued.

[duncanjyc]

Finding past connections - Volume 8

This is the ongoing search for people that I have worked with who had some importance to me in my life.

Some stories of how I found someone are simple. Some are more like the story of finding Moira,* someone I worked with early in my career. I really didn’t know her that well but she was a friend and I was always interested to find out how she did.

I started, as always, with a Google search; nothing. Linkedin: one listing that could have been her but it only had one contact, no picture and her only work experience was a vague job at IBM. I used the free tool to retrieve emails from Linkedin (Getemail.io) but it produced no emails. Dead end #1.

I talked to several people at the company where we worked together. Most people had no idea who she was (she was very quiet) but there was one person that worked with her at a Bank in Toronto. The last sighting of Moira was in the early 1990s. Dead end #2. I was about to give up.

But, one of my friends from that company, Mike, teased me about looking for her and challenged me to find her. So I wasn’t about to give up. The chase was ON!

From one of the conversations I had had with her in 1982 or 83, I knew her family ran a restaurant in the west end of Toronto, and I had a pretty good idea of the location. It stuck in my mind as my then-girlfriend, Denise, lived directly across the road – what a coincidence! I think this was a major reason I remembered Moira.

I did a search and the restaurant building was there but it was now a coffee shop (see above). I checked on Google StreetView, going up and down the street, and no other location looked right. Dead end #3.

Or maybe not. I emailed the Toronto Reference Library and asked if they could find the name of the restaurant at the address I thought it was from the mid-1980s. Two days later a very nice email came back from Joanne; I had the wrong address, it was a number 20 higher, up the street, with the restaurant name, … and the owner of the restaurant matched the last name! Furthermore, the resourceful researcher had found two current phone listings in the Whitepages for the full name listed as the owner. Eureka! And, the family appeared to have lived above the restaurant during those years. How they determined the last data point, I am not quite sure.

I have to admit that it took me a few days to draw up the courage to phone the first number. So on a Friday afternoon, I dialed the land-line number and a friendly but younger voice answered. I was pretty sure this wasn’t right as the owner of the restaurant, I presumed her father, would be in his 80s or older. The woman took my call and said, no, she wasn’t the person I was looking for. Nor did she know this name. Why was I calling? I explained, but the woman was clearly irritated and I hastily said my goodbyes. Dead end #4a.

To be continued.

* Moira is not her real name.

[duncanjyc]

Finding past connections - Volume 7

When I started this project to reconnect with people from my past, I was vaguely confident that I had a complete list of people that I wanted to reconnect with. After all, I had gone through my phone, email and Linkedin accounts to bolster my memories. And it was pretty long list at over 400 people.

What I have found through this project is clusters of people from periods of time that kept in contact with each other. So, when I contacted one person, I was reunited with several at once. Not only did that shorten my searches, it also reconnected me with people that I hadn’t remembered (my loss).

One such cluster was my University roommates, Bill, John and Dave. Somehow these three guys stuck together through thick and thin (all three where on my list), so when I reconnected, it was a heartfelt reunion. Furthermore, they have kept in contact with a wide number of people from our 1st year residence which I find fascinating. And part of the reunion is that they like to go on Thursday evening bike rides not too far from my house which has turned out to be a fantastic way to talk, get some exercise and burn off a few calories before the beer(s) at the end of the ride. (I ride home lit up like a Christmas tree, so minimal chance of a driving drunk/intoxicated incident or having an accident).

A very different cluster was from my middle school in the UK. I don’t know how it started, but on Facebook I have now been contacted by a few people from those days without me having to search for them! The last few weeks of this project have been a lot of fun as I hear from people from various places around the world with a shared past, and for the most part, a shared view of the world.

If you haven’t reached out to people from your past, I really hope you do. And if you need help, let me know; I would love to help. There are a handful of people I haven’t been able to find, but I am not giving up on those searches yet. So far, I am 85/90 in searches. I am pretty sure I can find the vast majority of the other 300+ people.

[duncanjyc]

Finding past connections - Volume 6

Searches – successful, not and still ongoing.

Not all searches have been successful. However, with persistence, it is possible that you find the person you are looking for. What is important is the fine details and some luck.

Successful

Wayne was a co-worker of mine at my first job. No one knew where he was other than he moved to a southern US state, years ago. I typed in his name – nothing. I talked to all my co-workers and they knew no more, but always ended up the conversation with, “when you find him, can you give me his coordinates so I can contact him.”

I recall that he was an avid musician so I added “Music” to my Google search – nothing; I added Guitar and up popped an entry for him on a “find a band member site.” There was no contact information listed unless you became a member of the site (no cost). I joined up. The “insider listing” existed with little in it but it did have a location in Tennessee. I again searched Google adding in this new field and an article about him came up along with a phone number was listed; Eureka, that was lucky! I dialed the number and I ended up having a great call with him and we have vague plans to meet in Florida (his other home). I also went back and got rid of my band insider listing so I don’t get asked to join any bands anymore.

Lesson learned: don’t give up. What I have found is that if I am persistent and I use tiny details about the person, I can often find someone. Another lesson learned: Don't join a site to find someone and then not unsubscribe quickly. I was asked to join three bands as a drummer before I canceled my membership.

Not successful – and doubtful

Martin Young was technically my first boss. He was, I guess, about 40 in 1982 so, he would be 80ish now which means the search has to progress quickly to improve my odds.

Getting started always starts with the following questions: What do I know about this person? Who was he/she friendly with? Where did they live and finally what interests did they have outside of work? Unfortunately for me and Martin, the answers were: He was quiet; Reid, the guy who asked me to find him; Unionville, Ontario; and I don’t know any of his interests. In summary, a whole lot of nothing. To put it into perspective, he was a very quiet person at work who had a habit of appearing behind you like an apparition, before asking a question that seemed unrelated to anything you did.

After the preliminary Google, Whitepages, Facebook, Linkedin searches provided nothing, I was stumped. It wasn’t like his name was going to be of any help. A colleague from those days came up with a good plan. As a pensioner, ask the pension firm if he was still alive. Now, because I am not a pensioner, I had to find someone what was, which I did. So far, no answer. Next, CIL, where I first worked, has a fairly active alumni group (email). I have now asked that group if anyone knows anything. There are other options, but let me get there in a subsequent blog post if these searches prove to be dead ends.

Ongoing

Adam Nossiter was a good friend of mine in grade 8. He was from a very intellectual family and he was incredibly well-spoken. I lost track of him shortly after I moved back to Canada but I wondered what happened to him.

Fortunately for me, a Google search resulted in a number of hits both written and video. It turns out he is the bureau chief for the NY Times in Kabul. Shit; he isn’t getting back to me anytime soon – I presume he is just trying to stay alive. Before that, he worked in a number of far-flung places and has written articles in English and French (and I presume Arabic), while also writing a number of books.

So how do I get ahold of him? I have tried to send a “letter to the editor” of the NY Times, but I haven’t heard anything back. I guess I just have to wait and see where he is next posted. Or try something else….

[duncanjyc]

Finding past connections - Volume 5

As a family, we had just moved from Scarsdale, N.Y. to a small town outside of Geneva, Switzerland, just in time for me to start Grade 1 at the English-speaking International School. On the first day of classes, my mother packed my older sister, brother and myself into an ancient VW Beetle (the model where the turning lights were on little levers that popped out of the car when you turned them on –giggles from the three of us every time they did this), and she dropped us off by the gates 30 minutes later. “Have a great day,” and off she drove. My older sister made sure that I found my classroom and just as I enter the room I see, Mark. Someone I know! His father and mine worked together in Toronto (two moves ago) and we knew they were in town as well, but to be in the same class! Needless to say, we hung out, thick as thieves every day, every class. But, as some would say, all good things come to an end and his family moved away first. For them, Greece.

I should explain that the life of an expat kid is constant change. The average time a family spends in one city is about 3 years so that means that 33% of your classmates leave every year. One skill everyone learns is how to make friends quickly – part of why I know so many people.

To illustrate the point, some years later, another friend, Steven, got an award at ASL in London for being the first to graduate Grade 12 having been at the school from Grade 1. The school at that point had been open for nearly 30 years. I suspect that in the 70 years that school has been open, no more than 5 kids have achieved that distinction as the school makes a big ‘to-do’ about it.

Back to Mark. Over the next few years, I heard from my father about Mark’s family and their moves which paralleled ours, finding out that they returned to Canada roughly the same time we did (when I was 14 – an immigrant in my own country). I never gave him much thought.

The look on my face during 1st-year orientation at University was of total amazement when I see Mark. He is in the Engineering program while I am in the Math/Computer Science program. We didn’t return to being best friends but we certainly drank a few beers together and reminisced about travels and family. We stayed friends throughout and occasionally chatted about where we would end up (I think we both believed we would do what our fathers did and become nomadic ex-pats).

Once, in about the early 2010s, when LinkedIn was still fairly new, I looked him up and sure enough, he was in Kazakhstan, or was it Ukraine?, president of a gas company. I recall sending him a short email and getting a response but that was it.

About a month ago, I again found Mark on Linkedin and reached out to him. A few days later we had an hour and a half zoom call covering off a lifetime of events and common themes. It turns out that he is retiring to Golden, B.C. where there is some of the best skiing/boarding on the planet (Why there? Because his wife is a ski instructor). Skiing is a passion of mine and my family, yet another common thread! Also, my son, Scott, the chef, is interested in moving to Golden this fall as well. A very good reason to meet up with Mark again. Small world.

Lesson learned? Contacting people while you and they are still working is so much easier than once people retire. So, once you get to about 50, make sure you connect with all those that you want to connect with before they disappear. I was really lucky with Mark because he has a not-common last name combined with a few facts about him that made his Linkedin profile unique.

[duncanjyc]

Finding past connections - Volume 4

I suspect that I am no different from anyone else in that I have lost touch with a number of people. The longer the time, the fewer connections. The last few months with Covid forcing people to be on-line far more than normal has impacted many people’s mental health, especially those already dealing with issues. Here is one story.

Tommy G. was a close friend in High School and into my early 20s. His family life was best described as chaotic. His parents had been through various struggles during WWII that resulted in their house packed with everything (before hoarding was a term). Everything from tin plates (1000s) to stacks of newspapers and other “reusable” items. Tommy somehow put that behind him and was a very funny, engaging guy. He introduced me to golf and we even went down to Florida for a week long golf junket (in the middle of summer… not the brightest move). We started to drift apart when I had girlfriends and then got married but I always hoped he would be able to move on from the family obsession of suing every neighbour.

As an aside, he showed up with the most impressive “plus 1” at my wedding (we didn’t know she was showing up). The rumour that night was that he hired her and that we never heard about her again reinforced the story. I hoped it wasn’t true.

My high school friends and I have all wondered what happened to Tommy and ‘hoped’ he did okay (as I like to say, “hope isn’t a good strategy”). I for one feel a sense of guilt over not being there for him as all his friends drifted off and left him alone, but I had my own life to lead. Isolation was an issue but became so much more acute with Covid.

Searching for someone that is “off the social grid” isn’t easy. I would love to say that I have found him and reconnected, but it just isn’t the case. I have a few more strings to pull to find him.

· I found his brother’s office (he is a family Dr); His brother hasn’t returned calls. Next step is to drop in at the office, post covid, at the end of the day. I realize this is like stalking. Now I know why “Dog the Bounty” hunter did stuff like this.

· There are only two younger people with the family last name in Toronto (one a Tommy – a family name?; the other Katie). I may trace them to see if they know anything.

· There are a few obituaries that mention the family and specifically a woman I presume is his aunt Victoria; she donated on behalf of the family (she has a different surname).

· After that… ????

I have probably put in 4 or 5 hours to find Tommy. Not too much – I wonder when I will find out what happened to Tommy?

[duncanjyc]

Finding past connections Volume 3

Finding people from schools used to be fairly easy; you could go to your alumni page and see a directory along with any profiles that people had updated.  My middle school in London, UK was like this and I would say in the early 2010s around 30% of the students in my class had email addresses listed.  It was from this list that I remembered contacting a couple of people from my years at this school.  However, time has passed, and I had changed my email, so those emails are long lost.  

So, I went back to the alumni page… nothing.  No directory, no profiles, Nada.  Schools seem to have been recoiling from data privacy issues and taking all these pages down.  The school Facebook page was of help finding other people but not who I was looking for.

Randy was my best friend in middle school.  We did a bunch of stuff together as young boys do until they are caught. (I was actually pretty good except for throwing eggs we had in our packed lunches from a gondola on school ski trips and various fruit from the upper decks of a cruise ship – never hit anybody).  

Looking for guys is a lot easier than women.  No name changes, more listings in LinkedIn – guys tend to keep this alive longer too – but less Facebook data.  So then I went looking for Randy on LinkedIn.  Given that Randy has an unusual last name, I was surprised to find six of him.  By comparison, I found out from a police officer one time that there were 14 of me in Toronto, 8 with the same middle name as me too – clearly Scottish heritage takes away the creative naming gene.  Another story for another day; back to this story.

One of the Linkedin profiles had a picture and I swear it was him, just 25 years older (it has been ~45 years).  I checked out the profile, no middle school listed – not surprising.  Interestingly, he speaks Russian.  How did that come about?  Lives in San Francisco and works for a software company; education seems appropriate for what I remember of him.  All plausible.

I hit the “connect” button and waited.  And waited.  Several weeks went by before I got a response, “I rarely am on Linkedin these days, so I just saw your request and message.  Yes, let’s chat.”

We set up a zoom call and greeted each other as good buddies.  He helped start up a software company 17 years ago and this week they are completing a transaction to sell the company.  He married a Russian woman when he worked in Moscow for a couple of years.  Comes in handy when they need to have a “secure conversation in public.”  Funny to hear that in today’s context.  We talked for over an hour and committed to visit each other if circumstances exist.   California wine country is now on my agenda with a place to stop in.  

Reasons number 2 for this project: It’s great to share old memories and find common ground again.  I cannot tell you the number of great laughs I have had on my calls.

[duncanjyc]

Finding past connections: Volume 2

Finding my first girlfriend, Denise: The first issue I faced was that women usually change their names when they get married.  I looked up Denise on-line using her maiden name (Google, Linkedin, Facebook, on-line telephone directories, etc.) to no luck.  Dead end #1.

I had met Denise at a party as she was a distant cousin of a friend of a high-school friend (Bill).  I contacted Bill who contacted his friend on my behalf.  No dice; he lost track of this cousin some years ago but did tell me that he thought she was married with two kids and living in Toronto.  Some information, but dead end #2.  

I then recalled that her father’s name was Larry.  I looked his name up and found one telephone entry in a small town in eastern Ontario that looked like it could be him - these listings display age – but it looked like he had fathered Denise when he was 22 or 23.  Slightly odd but still plausible.  I should point out that telephone listing are only for land-lines (ie. Old people).  Worth a shot.  

At this point, many people are asking: “Isn’t Linda, your wife, going to be upset? “ Well, a little bit.  I have kept Linda up to date with this project and she gave me a sideways look when I explained I was looking for Denise.  “What do you expect to get out of that woman?”

“Nothing really, I just want to tell her how much she helped me in my maturation and in becoming the person I am today.  Besides, I am curious what happened to her.”  I have thought on this subject a lot – why am I doing this?  Reason number 1 – Curiousity.  

I found Larry’s Facebook page – matching the location and name there was only one entry and it really looked like him.  I noticed he had his pictures on ‘public’ so I scanned them … Denise!  

I dialed Larry’s number and a vaguely familiar voice answered the phone.  You see I had only met him a handful of times and it had been close to 40 years ago. It turns out he remembered me very well and filled me in on his life - since married for the third time, long retired, now in his 80s and very happy.  He also explained that he was a great networker.   We talked like this for 30 minutes before he filled me in on Denise.  I thought he was going to hang up when he finished talking so I hurriedly asked, “could I get her phone number?”  Without a pause, I wrote down the number, thanked him profusely and hung up. Got to love people that like to network – they are very willing to help other networkers.  Note to self – look for other networkers.

And that is how I connected with Denise.  

[duncanjyc]

Finding Past Connections: Volume 1