In the last year, I've started to get to reknow a casual friend from the 50's. When I was at the University of Wisconsin in the mid-50's, Vilas lived in the same rooming house where I lived for one year. We were never really close friends, but I bought my first Fender guitar through him at a little music store in Richland Center, Wisconsin. It's called Richland Center because it's such a small town it only has a center. I hadn't thought a whole lot about Vilas over the years, but I never forgot him, because he was such an enthusiastic, excitable kid. He formed one of the first rock bands in Wisconsin and hat a top 40 single, hawking copies to area dj's, giving them strawberries from his father's farm.

About a year ago, another old college roomie, who I have kept in touch with me told me that he had wandered across Vilas's website. I checked it out, bought a CD of his old records from the late fifties and early sixties, and started an infrequent exchange of e-mails. Now, my wife and I are heading out to Wisconsin, and Vilas and I are trying to hook up together, perhaps to play some music. We only faintly resemble who we were 40 years ago, and I wonder if we'll have much to talk about (other than "remember the time when".) We weren't all that close a friends back then, so we don't have enough "remember the time whens" to sustain more than a five minute conversation.

I'll also get together with my old college roomie, who I havent' seen in ten years (although we keep in touch, and I've know him since pre-school days.)

What has been your experience, reconnecting with long-lost friends?
I've had great ones where we turned out to have more in common than we did thirty years ago, and others where we were both trying to find a grcious way to edge out the door.

What about you?

Jerry