Do you go back?

G

GP44

Member
I started looking on the internet for names of people I knew when I was younger.
Funny how I get such a sense of happiness and warmth while reading about them even in their obits.
Because that seems to be where almost all of them are now.
But to see that the guy I went to highschool with, did get married to that girl he liked so much, so many years ago and that they had three kids.
Does it matter that he had alzheimers for several years before he died and she is gone too?
I found out that one guy I worked for who everybody called Jim, that his real name was Clifford Edward.
Jim fit him so much better so that is how I will remember him.
Man! We had a time. We were the kind of guys who worked hard and played hard, drank hard and fought hard together.
Now all I can say is I hope I will see you again some day.
 
I have done that with some old friends and my first boyfriend in High School. Always in hope
to see they had a good life. The 1st boyfriend went into politics for about 8-10 years and
gave it up, not sure why. One friend died of an overdose in her 30's. Another had a clothing store retired now.
Another has 16 grandchildren.
I am in regular contact with 2, one from Middle School the other from High School. We all went off in such
different directions. My 1st husbands friend contacted me on FB years ago asking if the husband was still
alive or in jail. :rolleyes: Maybe he needed some pot or something :ROFLMAO:
 
hollydolly said:
Sad... when you think you were kids together and now they're either dead..or old....:(

It's much easier in the US to find people from the past than it is in the UK
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I don’t think of it as sad just knowing that they are gone because it just seems natural and I know it won’t be long and I will be gone too.
I think that the warmth I get from reading about them is because I loved them so much and because all of their memories mean so much to me.
 
GP44 said:
I don’t think of it as sad just knowing that they are gone because it just seems natural and I know it won’t be long and I will be gone too.
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Right. I'm on a group email list of a friend from where I last worked who sends us the obituaries of former employees. Someday, I will be on her list (if she's still living when it's my turn). I don't look forward to it; I just accept that death is a part of life and will come to me, the same as it has to the others.
 
I had a lot of friends, mainly through baseball. A lot of us were friends from Little League clear up to the AAA League. But after my 1st wife and I divorced and I got full custody of the kids, I didn't have the time or the freedom to go hang out with them. I stopped showing up for the poker games, fishing trips, and barbecues, couldn't meet them at the sports bar or the ballpark or parties.

For one thing, it was hard to find a sitter, but also, since I worked 8 to 10 hours 5 days a week, I was already spending too little time with the little ones. And when they got older, I preferred hanging out with them anyhow. Me and the kids went on fishing trips and invited their friends over for barbecues and game night. I went to my kids' ballgames and practices. Plus, there were school plays and scouting and day trips every Sunday and pizza and a movie every Wednesday.

So, I'd say, No, I've not gone back much.
 
I am still in touch with some school friends who I have known since I was 11 years old, mainly because of one particular friend who has made sure that we all kept in touch - I am so glad that she did. :)

Some of our class mates have died, some tragically. One guy became a successful musician while another, the one we all thought would be on Top of the Pops one day, he became a bus driver. One friend wrote a couple of books and used the money she made from that to open a boutique. It's really interesting to catch up because, we remember a time when we had our whole future in front of us and now, it's mostly history.
 
hollydolly said:
i can find for example information on a random person.. their phone number address ..even people in prison ..in the US on the internet ... but I can't find that same information on the internet for people in the UK
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Quite frankly Holly, I am rather glad about that. The last thing that I would ever want is a slice of my previous life bumping into me. Not for me thank you. The past can stay where it belongs, in the past.
 
GP44 said:
I started looking on the internet for names of people I knew when I was younger.
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I was broken of that one day when I got too curious and started looking for old friends. I know through Facebook that my closest school and work friends are fine, but I wondered about old boyfriends in particular. For three in a row, I found obits. Every one of them still in their 50s and low 60s. Never again.
 
My closest friends are gone and have been for some time. That hurt for a while and I will always regret that I never kept up with them.
But because I moved so far away it wasn’t like I just quit meeting up with them.
My career required so much of my time plus the time spent being a family man made me into the guy who never made it to extended family events or class reunions or even a chance to keep up with old friends.
I realized that when family members talked about going to a cousins wedding or an uncles funeral.
When you don’t have the chance to keep up then you are the forgotten one.
 
I had a kid I used to play with when I was young. He had a large yard with trees. We used to climb the trees. He also had little hot wheels and matchbox cars we would play with under an evergrern tree that was hollowed out at the bottom and we could sit and play with the cars in shade on a sunny day. But he never really bonded with me and so over time we drifted apart as adolescence kicked in.

Well, I looked up his name last year and discovered he died at age 61. Seeing a picture of him brought back the feeling of that time long ago when we didn't have a care in the world other than using our imaginations and pretending that one of the trees was an airplane and that we were the pilots.

I found out that he worked for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (a union job) most of his life.

He drove buses trolleys and trains during that time. He was known for having a great sense of humor among coworkers. Funny. I don't remember him smiling at all as a kid. He always looked preoccupied.
 
I'm in touch with some of the folks I used to work with mainly through Facebook but also in real life sometimes. There are very few people I'm not in contact with that I wonder about but there are some important ones. I would love to know how a girlfriend I had after my first marriage and before my second one is doing. I've tried to find her a few times but she was also a very private person so the information has been sparse.
 
I had the very recent experience of losing my X husband just this month.. on the 16th of March 2026 . He and I were teenagers together...just 18 month apart.. not only teens , with a big gang of friends, but then married and parents to our daughter....and we travelled and lived so many places..and experienced a lot in a short few years

Unfortunately the marriage didn't last but we were friends at the end of his life... up until he died less than 2 weeks ago age 69....

..and its still hard for me to not think of him as that young guy ..that Royal Navy sailor, that young guy in the our photos taken in our early 20's... even tho; I watched as the Cancer ravaged his body late in his life and made him look so much older than his age...:(

R.I.P my oldest friend... !
 
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hollydolly said:
I had the very recent experience of losing my X husband just this month.. on the 16th of March 2026 . He and I were teenagers together...just 18 month apart.. not only teens , with a big gang of friends, but then married and parents to our daughter....and we traveleld and lived so many places

Unfortunately the marriage didn't last but we were friends at the end of his life... up until he died less than 2 weeks ago age 69....

..and its still hard for me to not think of him as the that young guy ..that Royal Navy sailor, that young guy in the our photos taken in our early 20's... even tho; I watched as the Cancer ravaged his body and made him look so much older than his age...:(

R.I.P my oldest friend... !
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Thx for sharing this. An interesting insight.
 
I don't look back that often, but coincidentally, very coincidentally, I just signed up last night to be on a list of my high school alumni Class of 1961. I didn't think I'd know anyone out of a class of 1200, but there were actually two people I remembered. Not close to, but who I knew. There were only 30 or 40 names on the list. I don't know how many contacts are made that way. It's not like a forum but you can message people, privately I guess. I didn't see any conversations taking place.

I have done my share of internet "stalking," and made contacts. I rekindled an old college romance and it lasted for three or four years. It was long distance which made it difficult and rather expensive because we did a lot of flying to be together. And one time I was contacted by a woman I worked with 55 years ago. She is married now and just wanted to touch bases. But it was fun to talk on the phone.

Maybe 40 years ago, I found a grade school classmate's obituary, that shocked me. He was a kid who was going places when he was in the 7th grade, and he did go places later in life too. Very good student and athletic. He died of a brain tumor. Today, none of that would shock me. At my age, I'm more shocked to find out someone is still alive. lol
 
hollydolly said:
I had the very recent experience of losing my X husband just this month.. on the 16th of March 2026 . He and I were teenagers together...just 18 month apart.. not only teens , with a big gang of friends, but then married and parents to our daughter....and we travelleld and lived so many places..and experienced a lot in a short few years

Unfortunately the marriage didn't last but we were friends at the end of his life... up until he died less than 2 weeks ago age 69....

..and its still hard for me to not think of him as the that young guy ..that Royal Navy sailor, that young guy in the our photos taken in our early 20's... even tho; I watched as the Cancer ravaged his body and made him look so much older than his age...:(

R.I.P my oldest friend... !
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hollydolly: SO sorry to read about your late husband's passing. Staying friends at the end is so important for you. At least you
did have some happy memories in spite of the marriage not lasting and you did produce a daughter . 69 is so young.
 
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