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Back then, the Internet was still quite nascent, and even BBS-based mail systems were not established, so the only way to stay in touch with those people would have been the old fashioned way: pen, paper, an envelope and some stamps. Unfortunately, I was a young teenager, and quite busy dealing with the culture shock of a new school back at home… only home wasn’t at all familiar any more (“you can’t go back home again” could have been written by a kid who went overseas for a few years then returned home ;-). So, staying in touch was not exactly something I did well (I hardly wrote my own mother and father, let alone my friends back home). In short: I totally lost touch.

Every now and then, like tonight, the mood strikes me and I try to hunt down some people from my SAIS-R days. I’m pretty sure that many of my classmates are on the Internet somewhere, but it is amazing how much harder it is to track people down when your connection to them predates the explosion of the web in the mid-90’s. The great search engines of this day and age still have a pretty huge blind spot when it comes to the “pre-Internet” era.

If I was smart about all this, I’d probably call up my parents and try to find people through their parents, or call up the AISR’s Alumni Director. Probably, with 20-30 hours worth of homework I’d be able to get in touch with a few of my classmates.

I guess what I find interesting about all this is that I suspect my son will be able to find his grade school classmates with almost effortless electronic ease. How weird is that going to be? I can only imagine what it is going to be like for politicians from his generation.