Old Friends Right Near By

The other day at got an email from a sorority sister of mine who was in the class ahead of me at college. I had not seen Jan since she graduated too many years ago to say, but I remembered her well. Turns out she has been living in Chapel Hill for the last two decades and I never knew it. So we made plans to have lunch today.
We met at a restaurant near her real estate office and I knew her the second I saw her. Jan Kennedy, as I knew her was, always a smiling beautiful girl and still is as a grown up. That was when I remembered that she had come to Carlisle from Chapel Hill and was considered a sweet southern girl.
As we caught up over lunch I realized that I had seen her name, now Jan Butta, on Howard Perry and Walston Caldwell Banker signs around town. If only they had said Kennedy I might have put two and two together that I knew her from life long ago.
It makes me wonder how many other people I know from other parts of my life that are living near by. The internet has changed the chance to find friends, but it only works if you are looking for someone specific. It would be fun to put schools, camps, places of employment and past places you have lived into a program and have Facebook let you know who lives near you that also went to the same places you did at the same time. Or if you are going on vacation someplace to be able to find friends who live there.
Maybe my natural inclination as a connector makes this seem wonderful to me. I have found that reconnecting with old friends is almost always fun. I can’t think of seeing one person I had lost contact with that had not been enjoyable. As I age I don’t ever remember anything bad about someone, but just the good parts. This is certainly not because I only ever thought good things about everyone.
As Jan and a I talked we discovered many local friends we have in common, but amazingly we never crossed paths. Of course we easily could have stood in line at Whole Foods together and not realized we knew each other because we weren’t looking for each other. I wonder who else is right near by that I am missing?