Okay that was just weird

Okay so I'm new to this whole myspace thing... Mostly just tooling around as good place to keep up with bands and things I think are cool. But it's kinda late tonight and I'm half out of it with cold medicine, so I start getting nosy. I pull a search on my old elementary school. I went to "X" from 1st grade to 7th grade. It was a small private school, a place a I have mixed memories of. But ANYWAY, so I do a search on this school and one persons profile catches my eye. His age is the same as mine, so I take a look. And if it isn't a kid I went to school with, but more importantly, he's the first boy I ever kissed.

It takes me a minute of looking at his picture now to match it to his 11 year old face... But it was him. Lord have mercy, I haven't thought of him in years. But I remember that day with striking clarity. It was in the late fall of our 6th grade year. It was kinda cold and damp out at recess. The group of us (heck my whole class was maybe 20 kids) were building a fort in the woods next to the play ground. It was something to see. We had built it of found things, wood, old carpet, rugs, branches with leaves still on it for a nice roof. It was small and dark, but the lot of us were so proud of it. I remember listening to my walkman, to Crowded House's first album on tape in there.

M and I had been "going out" for a week or two (which we all know that back in the day was a LONG time)... Every one now stop and laugh at the craziness that is young "dating". Okay better... Moving on. We were in the fort, I have no idea who's idea it was, or how we even managed to get alone... But there we were, and there we kissed. Nothing mind blowing, I mean not the stuff of romance novels... But it was my first and it was sweet and shortly there after we were interrupted by my dorky friend Jonathan... God love him... Not sure why we didn't kill him.
M and I obviously "broke up", and I can't remember which of us left "X" first, but time has gone on and now we're both nearing 30, married and never really spare each other a thought. But it's kinda nice to see him grown up and hopefully happy.

But I have to say that's not what or I guess who I'd thought I'd find at that place.

My Constant Companion

Maj Hugh M Fanning

For over ten years now I have worn this man's name on my wrist. My silver MIA bracelet has never been taken off. Not for a shower, not for the tanning bed, not even for my wedding... never. He is always with me, my reminder of the people we've left behind, of lives cut short when they were much younger than I am now, my reminder that we must be vigilant as Americans and that we must strive to bring our lost home.


I've known his story since the day the bracelet came in the mail, but I'd never seen his face until today. I can't even express how it feels to look at his picture, I can't help but weep. I am so proud of this man I've never met, who was lost 10 years before I was even born. I'm so amazed by the wife and son he left behind. He's so much more real now, this man I think about every day, whose story I tell every time I'm asked what's on wrist. So that we may NOT FORGET.