Facebook reunites us

When I left my first newspaper I just new I'd stay in touch with everyone forever. They were my lifeblood. Heck, we'd gone through back-to-back tornadoes together (and I don't just mean covering 'em - for the second one we all "hunkered down," as they say on the Weather Channel, in the press room). We'd gone through two deaths in the newsroom - a longtime photographer who died of cancer and a young ad rep who was murdered. And a host of just once-in-a-life time experiences with photographers and other reporters, from ice fishing in the middle of Central Illinois-turned Siberia to watching a doctor stretch a kid's bone, the first time that procedure had been done in the U.S. When I left, they threw me a frog leg fryin' party and I bawled my eyes out and just knew I'd stay in touch with everyone forever.

Then came the next paper - new faces, new stories. People left, new people filled in the desks around me. I went on a pub crawl on my last night there - the amazingly hopping and hip downtown Greenville, S.C." - with my new "gang" and I bawled my eyes out but I just knew I'd stay in touch with them all forever. And the newspaper climbing continued, and pretty soon, as happens in life, memories and people faded. A few stuck, of course, I'm embarrassed to say usually because they hunted me down.

Fast-foward to 2008. Enter the social networking Web site Facebook. A friend talked me into signing up. And, then, one by one, they appeared. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning every time I found a new one. "Steve!" I'd yell, "it's my old editor!"

"Which one?" he'd say.

Not only that, my ridiculously huge high school class - 600-plus - has been reunited, well, much of it anyway, thanks to Facebook. And the coolest thing - there are no more cliques. I can finally fit in with the band news and everyone else.

I never realized how much I missed everyone. Geez I really missed them. And I'm glad their back.