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Missing an old friend? Today might be a great time to look for that special person.
September 17 is "Locate An Old Friend Day," according to the Days of the Year website.
Days of the Year says "every day should be celebrated," adding that their aim is "to bring all of the world’s weird, funny, wonderful, unknown and bizarre holidays under one roof, and to create the ultimate guide to celebrating each and every day."
Photo by Bianca Gonçalves from Pexels
The Days of the Year website says Locate An Old Friend Day is "dedicated towards motivating people to find old friends and see how they’ve been."
Although we can look for old friends on any day, the site says we sometimes need a little push to reconnect with friends from years past.
My "frenemy"
I wondered who I should look for on "Locate An Old Friend Day."
Thankfully, I still keep in touch with most of my childhood friends. But there's someone I lost touch with, our neighbor in Australia -- Paul, whom my brother and I used to play with.
I was five and my brother was three when we met Paul, also five, in Geelong, where our Dad worked. Dad was one of six Filipino engineers sent to Ford Australia to develop the Ford Fiera, the first Asian utility vehicle.
My brother and I mostly played inside our apartment in Geelong or sometimes in our backyard that had orange trees.
The author at age five in Geelong, Australia
Paul would come to our place several times a day to play with us or ask for snacks. At times, he would come too often that my little brother learned to say "by and by," implying that Paul should just come back later.
We mostly had good times playing with Paul but there was one time when he mischievously pulled a prank on me.
I was playing near the orange trees when Paul sneaked up behind me and tore my lavander hooded jacket away from me. Then he strangled me using the string of my jacket.
I tried to fight him off. I was taller than him but he was stronger than me. I couldn't speak and couldn't breathe. I couldn't remember much what happened at that time but apparently, I passed out. Thankfully, an elderly Australian lady saw me and brought me home.
Sadly, that incident makes me think that Paul is more of a "frenemy" than a friend...
Anyway, as today happens to be "Locate An Old Friend Day," I tried Googling Paul. Unfortunately, I found unsavory news about a Paul with the same surname and age as our old friend.
The Paul in the news reports I saw served jail time for sexual assault.
I wish that's not the Paul that we once knew because that would be so sad...
Next year, on Locate An Old Friend Day, I'll look for other old friends, and hopefully, I'll find better news and eventually, be able to reconnect with them.