Last month, I posted this on the sister blog at the Washington Post:
Under the subject line, “My best friend from 1st grade wrote this article,” Joshua Vogelstein pointed me to pointed me to an article in the journal Marketing Science . . . written by Brett Gordon and Wesley Hartmann . . .
Then came some some poli sci bla bla bla (it was some research on the effectiveness of political advertising), then I continued:
That’s pretty impressive! I’ve completely lost touch with my best friend from 1st grade. We moved away when I was in 2nd grade and we actually stayed in touch for awhile—I recall a sleepover when we were 10 or 11 and my family was back in town for some reason . . . Hmmm, his name was Mike Adlin, that’s a pretty rare name, I bet I can look it up . . .
And then the emails came in. From Brett Gordon:
Dear Andrew,
I recently got an email from Josh Vogelstein, my best friend from 1st grade. Not only was I happy to hear from Josh, whom I hadn’t heard from in over 25 years, but I was also delighted to learn about your Washington Post article on my political advertising paper . . .
And from Mike Adlin:
Great article with an interesting lede, but a correction may be in order because my recollection is that the sleepover when we were 10 or 11 took place in your house . . .
And . . . I told the story to my sister who told me, a few days later:
Thanks again for encouraging me to look up my best friend from childhood. I friended her on Facebook, and we’ve reconnected and are catching each other up on the past 40+(!) years.
Cool!
I am completely lost with who’s who!!!
Nice story. Hard to add a snarky comment tho :-(
Having moved schools five times for the first five years of school, I didn’t have any “best friend” in first grade. In fact, I can’t remember anyone in my first grade class, there was no time to make friends there.
Some people have all the luck.
its pretty cool that i’m featured “most successful blog post ever”, that actually resulted in something positive for other people!
of relevance, somebody i had lost touch with even *before* brett,
my best from pre-k,
i ran into a couple years ago,
after not seeing her for 30 years.
and she is now my wife & angel :)
so, yes, i seem to have infinite luck!