You ever search for an old childhood friend, and get a surprise?
 

My folks are getting on in years, Mom's mid-70's and Dad is in his 80's. Whenever I get out to BC to visit them we usually start going through old photos from my childhood, and I inevitably start trying to track down old family friends from when we were younger. It's more for my parent's benefit, they are still amazed by the whole FB thing and the ability to utilize Google to find people. Last year I managed to track down some family friends that we lost touch with years ago when we moved to Canada from the states. My mom and the other mom were really good friends and my brother and I, and the 3 daughters from the other family, grew up like cousins. Mom and their mom had a falling out and lost touch. I found 2 of the daughters on FB and made contact, they were ecstatic that I had found them, and we've all reconnected. Still hoping Mom can mend fences with her former best friend, but her friend had a couple strokes last year and isn't really recovered yet, hopefully in time.

Anyways, was just out there this last weekend and we came across another family we used to be neighbours with when I was a young sprout. At the time it was just my Mom along with me and my brother, and they were just the mom and the one son who was my age, so the ladies clicked and became friends and me and the kid played a lot together. We moved away from the area when I was 5, but we met up and visited several times a year still until I was about 10 or 11, when the lady and her son moved to Florida. Went through some photos of me and the other boy this weekend and mom was getting a bit nostalgic, so I thought it would be nice for her if I was able to put her in touch with her old friend, or at the very least find out what ever happened to her.

Facebook turned up nada on both the lady or her son. So, I turned to my Google-Fu, and started searching. Both of them had fairly unique names, so I was fairly confident if I could match a name to the area they moved to I'd be able to find something. Sure enough, I found the lady's obituary from January of 2016. The obit was very brief and made no mention of family. So I turned my attention to the son. To my surprise, I found him fairly easily. The first search result turned up was a newspaper headline "Cracker Barrel Slayings...". Holy crap. Turns out, the other boy, now 48 as am I, has been on death row in Florida since 1996 for a triple murder during a robbery of a restaurant he had previously worked at. To make it even more shocking, it wasn't a run of the mill shooting, etc... He drug the 3 victims into the walk in freezer, tied them up and cut their throats. WTF?? I know maybe we shouldn't be, as we haven't seen them since the early 80's and murderers are kids too at some point, but we were pretty floored. Evidently, the monsters really do walk among us.

Have you ever had any similar revelations?

Sometimes lost or broken connections can be a good thing.

Some things are best not known about.

This brought a smile to my face😀 I can relate to what you are saying becuase a very similar scenario just happened to me. My friend and I are planning to go into business next summer. Got all the work done and the location to make it happen. I feel most of the gratitude should go to him, pinky and the brain lol we are going to grow a football stadium of marijuana together 😎

I haven’t googled or looked up childhood friends but the wife looked up a few of my old girl friends on fb. Holy crap I’m glad I married the one I did. Some have gained more weight than some of my finished steers.

LMAO :sHa_shakeshout:

Part of my living is skip tracing, I have done searches for friends and neighbors but all have been happy findings for them.

I had a co-incidence that wasn't internet-related but seemed like an OK co-incidence to me. About 13 years ago a good buddy called me and said he had someone who wanted to meet me, being skeptical I was all "yeah, sure :rolleye2:" but he carried on so I realized he wasn't kidding. He'd been dating a woman for a few months and was driving past my Dad's commercial property with her and her sister when he pointed out the building and noted he knew the owner. Turns out they did too as their Mom dated my Dad around 1991! Back then I had helped them move when they were leaving the Mom's alcoholic abusive ex (he was not the father of the girls). I was about 21 at the time and back then I had not met the older sister that my pal was dating as she was living somewhere else, but her younger sister I had met and she was about 16 at the time. Turned out she had a bit of a shine on for me way back then so when the 3 of them realized the connection they conspired for us to meet. We wound up going out for a while after that but split after a few months. My Dad was relieved at the break up as he didn't want to have to cross paths with her crazy mother again :sHa_sarcasticlol: .

Bumped into her a year or two ago and chatted for a while, it turned out she was my step-nephews boss at her workplace..... the degrees of connection with her never seem to get very far away.

Quote of the Century

I had to quit FB due to being “found”.

They say Sometimes when the door closes, a window opens.....my advice?

Nail that beotch shut!!!!!

Diss what happens when you are a certified bad a_zz not just an internet one ;)

It completely boggles my mind. Last time I saw him was sometime during the summer of ‘81 or so, maybe ‘82. Our moms visited and he and I walked down to the DQ for a cone. He was big for his age and fairly overweight, normal kid though. A bit of a momma’s boy, but not weird, violent, etc... Hard to believe 13-14 years later he was killing 3 people in a walk-in cooler. Then 20 years on death row later...

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/a1h8non.jpg[/IMG]

I got this message on Facebook from a woman with the same last name as someone that I served with in the Special Service Force as a paratrooper.

“Remember me? I’ve changed a bit.”

He was now a she! Mind blown...........

Yup, shocking news may pop up....the girlfriend you dumped 30 years ago had twins....your twins:scared0018::sHa_sarcasticlol:

HaHAHAAAA :happy0180: Lmao!

Me and a buddy of mine had a friend who was destined to be trouble when we were kids. I found him on Facebook, and he is the most entertaining person I have on there. He is now a pimp and likes to fight with his girlfriend / wife on FaceBook. He will sometimes be silent for extended periods when he gets thrown in jail. It's a sad turn in life for him but interesting to follow his life, since I did not go to the dark side like he did.

I met up with a guy who was my best friend through grade school. I quickly realized why we lost touch. He was a vegan and into save the world, hydrocarbon = bad. Hemp clothing and the works. Last time I met up with someone I had “lost touch” with.

If the telephone couldn’t hold a relationship together, I doubt the internet could. A good buddy from elementary school couldn’t be found on the internet so I drove to his house, knocked on the door and spent a few hours catching up.

I guess that's why Garth Books sings that song about in answered prayers