While socializing here at the wonderful University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign, I ran into someone I knew from high school.

Wait, that’s not entirely accurate.

While socializing here at the wonderful University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign, I ran into someone who knew me from high school.

Better.

I would say that I could recognize a lot of people I went to school with. Moreover, I could recognize anyone sharing my interests, say a common club.

Again, that’s not entirely true as I have, apparently, completely excluded even the faintest memory of this one person whose name I have now again forgot. Something about me lets every detail of this person glide off my memory cells as if coated with pam. Or some kind of space-age polymer available only through this once in a life-time offer.

Anyway, I walk by and hear someone say the words, or relatively close, “… since I’m from Joliet …” (I have no idea what context they were said in).

So I introduce myself as Jim and I’m then told (1) my last name (2) what school I went to (3) what year I graduated and (4) what clubs I was in. This was not as creepy as it sounds typing that out.

I was amazed that our paths must have crossed many a time, yet my recollection fails me. I suck with names, but am generally very good at remembering someone’s face.

I must be slipping in my old age.