I stay in contact with my friends over the phone and facebook but not much else as far as friends go these days.  I miss many aspects of college, one of them being just being to spend time with friends and even casual acquaintances on a whim.  I had a Japanese friend who used to make the best spicy chicken using sauces and spices I couldn’t even find in America.  I had a friend from South Dakota who worked at a fine steak house in the Black Hills during the summers who was an excellent cook.  He used to make the best Broccoli and Cheese soup in the winter.  Since we weren’t allowed to have electric grills in the dorm, he used to cook steaks only when we were at his mom’s house during summer break.  There was an all night truck stop a few miles from campus that served the best chicken fried steaks and clam chowder with 99 cent bottomless cups of coffee.  One of my friends used to get kind of annoyed because one of the waitresses would flirt with him even though he was married and wore his wedding ring at all times.  Since I had a wide range of friends, most of whom had as wide of interests as I did, it wouldn’t be uncommon for us to be chatting about anything from baseball stats to Austrian economics to Medieval military tactics to modern geopolitics to science advances all in the same conversation.

I was in college when the first human genome was completed.  Even we had no idea what that meant when that was finished.  I was in college when the first privately funded space flight took place too.  Now fifteen years later private companies and several different national space agencies are talking about building bases on the moon and even Mars.  It was also in college I bought my first broadband internet and cell phone.  Those things look like they belong in a museum not even twenty years later.  We had several guys in my dorm get in trouble with the phone and cable company for having pirated internet and cable in their dorm rooms.  Some guy in my dorm figured out how to get all the cable channels, including the premium channels, and fastest dial up internet for free and let a bunch of guys in on his secrets.  Well the school and the cable company found out and threatened legal action.  Kind of glad I didn’t in on that one.  I have no clue what college kids are pirating anymore.

I miss my friends I admit.  But at least I have my memories.  And thanks to social media it’s far easier to keep in touch now.  My father’s biggest regrets are that he didn’t keep in contact with his college and Air Force friends more before social media went mainstream.  Fortunately I don’t have to make that mistake.