Exposure

And before I knew it, I was seated in front of a television camera, giving an interview to a national network. It had been a matter of days since the tragedy, and in an almost surreal turn of events, I had inadvertently helped produce the story.

Sitting in the darkened room, I was aware of my lipstick drying out under the lights, the slight quiver in my voice, and the voice in my head worrying that I would say something stupid or forget something important.

A reporter from the local public radio station then contacted me about doing a different angle on the same story. I found myself sitting, oddly enough, in the basement of my house giving an interview along with three of the other women who also work on the nonprofit. We ended up in the basement after the reporter had inquired on the phone, "And where is your project headquartered?" I blurted out the first funny thought that came to mind, "In the basement of my house." For some reason, the reporter thought this would add a certain authenticity to the meeting. What it really led to was me spending an entire day cleaning up the space. Although you can't see the room on radio, I feared the reporter would reveal the truth in a description along the lines of, "In a dusty, cluttered, pigsty of a basement..."

The interview went well, although the four of us felt a little bit bad when our stories made the reporter cry.

The fruit of a strange whim
In a moment of boredom or distraction today, I decided to google the name of someone I knew as a teenager. This is an oversimplification. In 1975, I participated in a program that matched American teenagers with kids overseas for short-term summer exchange visits. My group was matched with a group in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Patty came to my home in 1975, and I visited her family in 1976.

The trip to Brazil while educational, was akin to a visit to another planet. It wasn't a cultural issue; this was all about class and status. I came from a highly dysfunctional blue-collar family. My parents were chronically deep in debt, and the financial stress of always being broke influenced everything about our lives.

Patty's family wasn't just well-off; they were affluent. Their lifestyle was beyond my comprehension. They lived a palatial house and had live-in staff, including two cooks, a driver, and a handyman. At night, the house was protected by three German Shepherds that were trained not just to attack, but to kill. During the day, the dogs were kept in gated kennels where they snarled at anyone who passed by. I was fascinated that the dogs had been trained only to respond to commands issued in German.

At 15 years old, it is still possible to let curiosity overcome self-consciousness. I enjoyed my time with Patty and her sister Silvia. We kept in touch for a few years, but once college started, we stopped putting in the effort needed to write letters by hand and send them via airmail.

For the past couple of years, I did attempt the occasional Google search to locate Patty, but I was always unsuccessful. Until today. Today it occurred to me to search for only part of Patty's last name, and there it was at the third hit: Her father. It was a professional biography, and although the name left me 50 percent sure I had the right person, the details of the biography erased any doubts about who this was.


I sent an email. I knew the message was going to a public relations mailbox, so I kept it brief and formal. It seemed prudent not to come off as a possible stalker or total wahoo, given the circumstances.

Two hours later, I received a response from Patty's father. It was that easy. Thirty-three years had passed, and in a matter of hours we were back in touch and getting up to date.

Just one more reason to love the Internet.