In the summer of 1971, I made a life-changing decision. I chose to drop out of college and attend radio-TV-film school in frigid Minneapolis. For the first time, I would be in a place where I knew absolutely no one, far away from family, friends and familiar surroundings.
At first I felt incredibly lonely and a bit scared. But shortly after school began, I met two classmates named Steve and Dan. Steve was from upstate Minnesota, and Dan was from Iowa. We hit it off immediately and quickly became best buddies. It wasn’t long before we shared an apartment together. The school’s program was a one-year curriculum, and during that year we were the three musketeers, doing everything together, or at least as much as three broke young guys could afford to do.
Staying in touch
Upon graduation we vowed to stay in touch forever as we headed off to different parts of the country to begin our media careers. But in those days staying in touch required more effort than it does now. There was no internet, no smartphones, no text messaging and no email. We managed to pull it off for a couple years, but eventually we all got married, started raising kids, moved around. You know how it goes. Communication dwindled and eventually dried up.
In the blink of an eye, 44 years had gone by since I had seen them last. Once retired, I was determined to track them down. I scoured the internet, searching under every name, phrase and location I could think of. No luck. It was like they had disappeared.
Tough news
There didn’t seem to be any digital footprint of them anywhere. Then one day, I must have stumbled upon the right search phrase. A link on Dan popped up on my screen.
I went numb all over. It was an obituary. Dan died in 2003 of cancer. He had been working at a country radio station in Madison, South Dakota. He was just 47 years old. Even though we hadn’t spoken in more than four decades, I felt part of my life died with him.
I’ve never located any information on Steve. I pray he is still out there somewhere and that life has treated him kindly. Good friends are a special gift from God. If you are blessed to have them, don’t ever let those relationships wither away. They make you who you are.
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