Reconnect With a High School Classmate Not Seen or Heard From In Decades Without Social Media

Every headmaster, headmistress or principal of a high school has a pithy saying, an inspiring phrase or some encouraging aphorisms for the students. My high school headmaster was no exception.

Most of us have several lasting memories from primary school and high school. Many of us also try to attend reunions to link up with former classmates when feasible.

However, situations in life frequently preclude attendance at these yearly or biennial get together. Thus, one may not hear from a former classmate for several years or even several decades.

Wish to connect with a high school classmate from 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 years ago, and for whatever reason, you and/or your classmate are not on social media? No problem.

Just type in your principal’s pithy saying, inspiring phrase or encouraging aphorism into a search engine. Eureka !!!. Your old classmate’s current information pops up.

I attended a Christian(Baptist) high school in Abeokuta, Nigeria, and graduated in December 1962. Every morning, Monday to Friday, all the students would gather in the chapel for devotion before classes began at 8:00 AM.

Our principal, the late Mr. Akinsanya would always admonish us with these words: “You are our letters; you are our books”. Quite often, he would repeat it in Yoruba language; “Eyin ni iwe wa”.

This is a quote from the second epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 2. The King James’ Version reads thus: “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men”.

The New Living Translation reads: “ But the only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves! Your lives are a letter written in our hearts, and everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you”.

Fast forward 57 years, a high school classmate I have not seen or heard from since 1962 is writing his biography. He wants to include a section using the quote “Eyin ni iwe wa” — “You are our letters; you are our books” as the theme of that section, and he needs more information.

He types in “Eyin ni iwe wa” into the Google search bar and wow!!!

He sees a reference to the quote in my book: RESCUE THYSELF: Change In Sub-Saharan Africa Must Come From Within,(Hamilton Books). He got a copy of the book, read it and found the quote on page 31.

From the information he obtained from the book, he was able to get the phone number of my non-profit organization and he called me on that number.

However, as you can expect, as many of us do in these days of robocalls, I did not answer the call because it was an unfamiliar number. He left a message on the voicemail. Later I listened to the message on the voicemail. I was pleasantly stunned to hear from him.

However, it was not until I called him that he narrated the story of how he got my number. You can imagine my elation the first time I heard his voice in more than fifty seven years.

Yes, social media is a rock solid feature of our lives today. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

However, if for whatever reason, you are not a fan of social media, no worries. You can still connect intentionally and unintentionally with old high school classmates and colleagues.

Just remember some notable quotes rom your principal which you all heard over and over again. Those quotes will always be in the writings and speeches of your classmates, schoolmates and others who heard them for decades. Thus you would almost always be able to reconnect with them.

As the saying goes; “Old sayings never die”. Hang on to them. They might just come in handy in more ways than you expect.