Causing trouble and being a bad influence

Since beginning this blog I have been stalked by some very interesting people. People from my past, people that I never thought would track me down and leave me crypted messages.

As odd as it may sound, I have a MySpace account that I use for my work. I use it to find musicians for a monthly feature article I write for my job. Most of the local bands in my area have MS accounts so they are easy to find and contact that way.

When I was in high school I was a band geek… hanging out with the cool kids (kind of an oxymoron band geeks/cool kids). But, some of them were closet rock stars – you know, the ones who played drums or guitar. Anyhoo… one of the guys I knew kept up with his music and eventually, through a unexpected twist of fate, became the music minister of a large church near where we grew up. Really didn’t see that one coming.

On a particularly boring day I thought, ‘JD may have a MySpace page, I should try to find out.’ Long story even longer, found him, left a message and then forgot about it.

Several weeks later I get a comment on one of my posts from him. Totally freaked me out. We exchanged e-mails and then again nothing for weeks. I send a second e-mail, one response, then nothing. I figure it was his unrequited high school crush rearing it’s ugly head and he just couldn’t handle being that close to me again, yet still so far away.

Actually, I think life happened.

Another faceless memory from the past showed up recently. After I posted a story about my family history I get a heartstopping message addressed to ‘Dak-Tari.’ There was only one person who ever called me that.

Again an exchange of e-mails with a long lost cousin – his mother and my father are siblings. I hadn’t heard from MW since we were kids. His family lived in Michigan back in the day, we lived in Tennessee. Not much opportunity to hang out.

We did visit them in Lansing once. I got to see the Aurora Borealis – the trip was worth it just for that. He and my BD were chess master wanna-bes and tried to have a correspondence match. You know – sending letters back and forth with moves. Took for stinkin’ ever and I don’t believe they finished the marathon game. Remember, this was WAY before Internet and e-mails.

Well, we have exchanged some e-mails are slowly catching up with three decades of news. It was fun to hear from him, and a little ironic that it was a family history post that was the impetus. His mom is the official keeper of the family archive. She has all the written histories, all the letters and documents chronicling our family lineage. My name popped up on some search he was doing.

The best part is that last week he started his own blog. See, I am a bad influence on my whole family. I encourage my daughter to put holes in and ink on her body, allow my teenage son to have longer hair than me, and mayhaps had some influence on yet another unsuspecting family member to join the ranks of the blog-o-shere.

He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. But, his blog is hilarious, and I’m not just saying that because he’s family. I asked him permission to blogroll him… I didn’t want to open those flood gates (maybe more a trickle) without warning him first. When (not if) he gives me the go ahead, I’ll pass it on. Then, if you get the chance, get over to his place and let him know I sent you.

Who would have thought the Internet would lead to a high school and family reunion.