I got a question this morning that usually is preceded by something about my disability. It is, “Do you have any regrets?” Yes, I do. Before I left Western Michigan University, I collected the email addresses of those in my writing classes. I had been back in Minnesota less than a month when the computer I was using died. What died within the computer was the mechanical hard drive. If I had had the money, some firms could have recovered whatever was on that hard drive, including email addresses. I didn’t have the money, so I lost them all. I had naïvely believed that they could not be lost once they were on the computer.
Besides the writing class members, there was the address of a young man from Malaysia. His family made things like detergents. We became good friends, and I looked, trying to find him. However, the name Lock is a common Chinese name. After looking for him for almost a year, I gave up. There was also a lady from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan towards a very eastern edge and a minister’s daughter. She was pursuing a degree in an esoteric field because of her great brilliance. She was also gay. Her partner seemed at times to be jealous of me, so when I left, I gave the partner a plant as a peace offering.
From writing classes, there was Linda, who was a children’s book author. Just before I left, she announced her engagement to a fellow from Minnesota. We all cheered that pairing. There was another woman who wrote about hiding her absent father’s shoes in an unused mailbox. There was another woman who worked in the psychiatric field. Her story was still going on when I left, but I remember the power of a scene where a disturbed boy was killing kittens. Many others, including a couple who made me an adaption of a dream catcher to catch ideas for stories. I see it hanging over there with pencils in place of the feathers that might be on it.
I graduated in the spring of 1992, so if you know anyone who graduated from the writing program at Western Michigan University around that time, share this address. Or just pass this along – Perhaps, the magic of the Internet will produce old friends.
