"I thought I saw you out on the avenue."

"But I guess
it was just someone
who looked a lot like
I remember you do."

Things I saw this morning on the way to work:

Joel Kiefte, circa 1993 or 1994.

In fact it was just the flash of a kid who looked so much like Joel did in high school, tall and gangly and wearing a dark blue baseball cap, stepping onto the station platform as our train sped away. Seeing this kid made me wonder what Joel is up to these days. He's not on Facebook or MySpace, and while he might be one of the results of a "joel kiefte" Google search (probably the one in BC), one can't know for sure without a photograph to confirm identity.

Joel Kiefte, where are you? Who would know? Eric Larock? Chris Anderson? Erin Brophy? Leah Adair? I don't even know where Leah is these days. I'm sure someone does, and I'm sure that if she wanted to be found by the likes of me and/or any other yahoo performing a web search, she'd be found. A computer and access to the internet doesn't mean I have the right to root out people I haven't seen in over a decade. For all I know, Leah's gone underground, hanging out in some secret society with Joel and the notoriously untraceable Margarita Ngoh. More power to them!

The real question is: why do I care? If people want you to know where they are, they will tell you, or they will post profiles on popular social networking sites and attach easily recognizable photos so that they might be rediscovered. Still I wonder. It's true that Joel and I weren't close friends -- we were just friends, and we might not be friends if we met again -- but I do miss him sometimes. Then again, maybe I just miss the Joel that looked like that kid in the subway.

TRACK LISTING: Translator, "Everywhere That I'm Not"

[NOTE: The image above is the back of Joel Kiefte's head, as seen in the rear parking lot of our high school in the spring of 1993.]