High School Friends: Led, Part 2

Yesterday, I started writing about my friend Led, whom I knew from elementary through high school. In today's post, I'll tell what I know about what happened to him.

After I graduated from high school, Led started writing country songs. When I came back to town following my sophomore year of college, he performed a couple during the choir's annual Spring Concert. But that was the last I saw of any attempt by him to try to be an entertainer.

Every Christmas during college and afterward, I would drop by and see Led. He was usually at his mother's house for the holidays. At one point, he had gotten married and had a child before he was 25 years old. After that, I sort of lost track of him.

I didn't see him again until 1997. I was home on a vacation. I was able to call his mother and get his whereabouts. He was living in Albuquerque at the time. I was going to be driving up to Denver on that trip. He was excited to hear from me. I was able to stop by and stay the night in his apartment.

I found the place where he lived. He was working as a US Marshal at the time. (One thing I haven't mentioned up to this point was that Led was rather short with a very skinny build. He had put on some muscle since the last time I saw him, but he still did not look like someone in law enforcement.) We went out to get something to eat. He brought his gun with him. I was not expecting that.

What had happened in the previous years is that he had gotten divorced from his wife. She became addicted to the Internet and hooked up with some guy she met on-line. However, she still had custody of their child. At that time, he didn't have any romantic prospects. (I myself was in the middle of a dramatic on-again, off-again relationship, but that's way down the line.)

Interestingly enough, I would be seeing Rod for the first time in 14 years the very next day in Albuquerque. Even more interesting is that I would never see either one again after these reconnections.

I don't exactly know what has happened to Led. I know that his mother died in 2011 at the age of 87. At that time, the obituary indicated that he was married and living in Roswell. He also appeared to have had two children with his second wife.

I expect I'll be seeing him again sometime in the future. I will do a Part 3 when that happens.