This is the follow up to yesterday's post about a friend I had as a teenager named Orld. My post-high school encounters with Orld were rather infrequent.
I know I ran into him in Artesia from time to time while I was in college. He got married to some woman from Carlsbad. She worked at the Tastee Freez. (An interesting side note: Dend, who my mother married after divorcing my father, was related to the people who owned the Tastee Freez.) He worked at one of the grocery stores in town. He eventually worked up to department manager. He and his wife had a couple of children.
I remember he came to a concert at Eastern New Mexico University on 10/31/86. This was after I had graduated from college. I was surprised to see him there. We caught up for a little bit and then I wouldn't really see him again for almost six years.
In 1992, I had come to Artesia for my first visit since I moved to San Diego. I came a few days before my class' 10-year high school reunion. I went over to the grocery store where Orld worked and found him. At first, he thought I was there for the reunion. We met up at his house later that evening. He said his father had given him his house. I was glad to see that he was doing pretty well, especially considering that my mother thought he was worthless. (By the way, I blew off the reunion. I had no intention of going.)
I continued to see Orld every time I came to Artesia, which was about once a year. At the time, he was the only person from high school I still had contact with. Then, in 1998, I had shaved my head. For the previous seven years, I had this incredibly long and bushy hairstyle that I was rather noted for. I had to shave it because it was damaged and I needed to get a fresh start on it. I went to see Orld. (At this point, his father had taken the house back and he was living in a mobile home on the outskirts of town.) Orld was watching a football game with some friends and was drunk. I had been around him before when he was drinking, but I had never seen him drunk like this. He kept commenting on how surprised he was that I had cut my hair. He made no attempt to act even a little bit sober and I got kind of irritated that he wasn't making an effort to be the friend that I came to see.
I don't drink and I've never been drunk, so I don't know how easy or hard it is for someone to just sit up and act normal for a few minutes after having a few drinks. I have seen people on LSD trips keep their composure when the time calls for it. However, I was there to visit Orld and it just wasn't happening the way I wanted it to. I decided to leave and figured that I could live the rest of my life without ever having anything to do with anyone I went to high school with. I guess I was just looking for an excuse to do just that.
I don't even know if Orld realizes what happened that day or that was the reason why I never came to see him again. I do know that in 2012, a couple of weeks after Wild had called me and Rad had e-mailed me, Orld tried contacting me at the station. When I asked my father to tell anyone inquiring of me to just Google me, I meant for them to send me an e-mail. He actually called. I was on the air at the time and the woman who was working in the newsroom at the time answered the phone. She IM'd me with his phone number. Thinking that she had written the number down on a piece of paper, I deleted the IM. I then found out she didn't write down the number. She put it directly in the IM. I don't know if I would have called. I probably would have felt obligated to explain what happened 14 years earlier. However, Orld never tried to call the station again.
I do feel bad that I broke off a friendship that had lasted about 23 years that point. I may have to look him up the next time I go to Artesia. That will be a story for a later time.
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