“It is by chance that we met, by choice that we became friends.” — Anonymous



This week, I was in couple of public gatherings which leads me to reiterate something that I find in almost any setting with groups of people I haven’t seen in a while. I simply and frequently can’t remember names of people who were once a part of my past. Sometimes I recognize faces, but names escape me completely.

I am going to be honest. Some of you that I knew 40 or more years ago look different. Some of us look more “mature.” Some of us might have gained three or four pounds.

My memory has gotten so bad that I don’t even remember some of you being bald in junior high school. And some of you guys look different as well. Certain high school nicknames like “Curly” and “Slim” now seem oddly inappropriate.

Of course, there are always the people who look the much the same 40 years out of high school and wear the same clothing sizes. By the way, we all collectively pretty much hate you. Mind you, I am being observant and not judgmental. I have a mirror, a scale and old photograph albums in my house, too.

 After so many years, I know all of us over 50 have felt the awkwardness of somebody coming up to us in public in a similar scenario: “Hey, Lindon Dodd. How are you?” And even if you are sure you knew some people, you have no idea whatsoever about their name. That’s when I usually pepper the conversation with those fake terms of endearment by referring to them as “buddy” or “partner” or have even panicked and slipped in with the horribly chauvinistic “sweetheart” or ”babe.”

Even this farce can only last so long.

Sometimes I catch a lucky break and they will introduce their spouse who will say something like, “Bill is always talking about when you were in high school.” It’s great when this jars the memory enough to clue you in as to whom this person might be. Did you ever kind of feel them out for clues by saying something like, “Weren’t we in Mr. Swearingen’s Spanish Club together?”

I think the most embarrassing are people who turn out to be somebody you really did see on a regular basis but now in absolutely no way do they physically resemble the jock or homecoming queen they once were.

Did you ever have to suppress the internal honest immediate response, “What happened?”

I would like to say I have gotten better with these awkward meetings, but I really haven’t. On an occasion, I have even admitted and simply let them know I can’t remember the name. Still, my pride and embarrassment sometime still can get the better of me and I can come off pretty silly. Usually, I kind of feel guilty if they remember me and worry it will hurt their feelings if I didn’t remember them.

I have often even wondered if on their way home if they are thinking, “Boy, that Lindon Dodd sure hasn’t aged all that well.”

I will say that after identification is made I almost always enjoy catching up with what’s going on in their lives. Nothing can make you feel young again like talking with a childhood friend. It will often take me back to some of the best times of my life.

I spent a few minutes this past week talking with my very first girlfriend from the eighth grade at Wilson Junior High School (now it’s an elementary school). It was all so innocent being an eighth grade Casanova in 1968. We didn’t have drug rehab or nurseries for child care for unwed mothers during my middle-school years. I don’t know that I ever kissed her and am not sure if I ever even held her hand (I was a Baptist and we were warned about even the evil consequences of dancing back then).

I won’t publicly embarrass her by giving you her name.

I am probably still emotionally scarred because of an incident that happened to me during my freshman year at the Optimist Club teen dance. My sister and her best girlfriend were waiting for rides home and were going to “make-out” with their boyfriends at the side of the building. There were two couples and another girl who was a year older than me. After some pretty ambitious and presumptive negotiations, the older girl agreed to make out with me given one condition. I couldn’t tell anybody that we kissed. That’s not a real self-confidence booster as a teen stud when a girl swears you to secrecy before making out.

I told all of my friends the next week and if it would have happened today, I would have posted it on Facebook.

It happens to all of us sometimes. This isn’t junior high and it doesn’t mean one of us was more popular, although I am pretty much recognized most of the time.

The people that are the most honest about the situation have a sure-fire method to avoid this moment when they have approached me with a very direct greeting, such as, “Hi, Lindon. I am Bill Johnson and I knew you in high school.” It’s kind of a polite and very age-appropriate introduction.

Let’s just simply treat every public outing as a possible impromptu class reunion and agree to wear name tags for the rest of our lives. I am pretty sure our memories won’t start improving with age.

— Lindon Dodd is a freelance writer who can be reached at lindon.dodd@hotmail.com