Thanks, Old Facebook Friend

First off, I type these updates in Microsoft Word, then copy and paste into Blogspot. When I type the word “Facebook”, the little red squiggly line comes up underneath. In other words, my Word program doesn’t recognize the word “Facebook”. Word thinks I misspelled something. (I’ve found that Word sometimes has funny ideas about grammar, but that’s a whole other blog.) Still, it’s another way to show how something so pervasive is still so new. Facebook is still a very young entity. It’s new enough, at least, that the term hadn’t been invented when my version of Word was created. But it has quickly become a fixture in my life – you know, like oxygen and food and Star Trek and zombie films.

Now, on to the blog…

“I found a new friend today.”

That’s what I would tell my mother coming home from pre-school, when I met someone I though was kind of cool or had a better collection of GI Joes than me. These days, thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) of people say the same thing, “I found a new friend today.” They say this to those people they actually see in person when they log off from the virtual “friend” gallery we know as Facebook.

What’s funny is that I’ve never actually met someone “new” through Facebook. There are a couple of friend requests I’ve approved after meeting someone in a bar during a gig. But I did see those people in the real world first – you know, the world that has oxygen and trees and plants and real flesh and blood human beings. Facebook’s success isn’t in helping to find new friends. It’s helping to find the old friends – those that we’ve forgotten over the years.

Today, I had the chance to rediscover someone I had forgotten. Not only was it someone from my past, but this person also continues to have a profound effect upon my present. It was pretty serendipitous how I found person, too. And yes, I’m going to tell the whole story and make you wait to find out who it is. (It’s my blog, and I’m trying to create some freakin’ suspense, so play along…)

See, I’m Facebook Friends with a guy at work, who’s actually in a totally different city. We were both on a conference call this morning, and since he and I are Facebook Friends and I didn’t want him to see me updating my Facebook status during the conference call, I was just looking, not posting. Ironically, my Facebook Friend had fewer reservations about using Facebook during the call.

Now this Facebook Friend, outside of his day job, is a really, really good banjo player, which means a lot of his friends come from the music world — fans and fellow musicians, etc. As I was listening to the conference call, I saw that the banjo player had approved a new Facebook friend. It amused me that I was being a good little employee and he wasn’t. So I gave a closer look at the entry that announced his new friend. His new friend turned out to be an old friend of mine. What are the odds?

It was someone I knew from age 11 to 13, when my mother forced me to take up a musical instrument. She wanted me to take piano lessons. I wanted to play guitar. She was happy as long as I was playing something, so guitar it was. She signed me up for lessons at a place called Pearson Music in Winston-Salem. Pearson Music no longer exists and it’s no wonder. Even to my 11 year old eyes, the place seemed way overpriced.

The man who gave lessons in the back room of the store was named Richard Matteson. It was a name I thought of only very occasionally over the years and had nearly forgotten. It was Richard who the banjo player had just friended. (By the way, "friended" also has a red squiggly line.)

Forgetting all thoughts of workplace propriety, I immediately clicked the name, saw a very familiar face, and hit the “Add As A Friend” button. How cool. My old guitar teacher was on Facebook. The man who first told me which frets to fret and which strings to pluck was suddenly right in front of me…online anyway.

You see, my old guitar teacher was (and is) a man of many musical styles. I saw him play some beautiful flamenco music once. He gave me one of the blues tapes (yes, back in the days of tapes) he made. He taught me rock, pop, blues, jazz (only a little) and even heavy metal tunes. These days, it seems, he’s doing a bit more with bluegrass—which is how he and the Banjo Player Facebook Friend From Work Who’s Actually In A Totally Different City got to know each other.

This is despite the fact that Richard now lives in Louisville, KY.

Driving home the serendipity angle, the banjo player approved seven or eight other friend requests in a few minutes, so my guitar teacher’s name was only listed for a short time before the listing changed to “(Banjo Guy) is now friends with (some other dude) and seven other people.” I was looking at just the right place at just the right time.

It was also cool because it gave me the chance to shoot Richard a quick message. While I’ve only thought of him rarely these past few years, when he did come to mind, there was something I hoped I’d be able to do.

You see, my mother bought the guitar, signed me up and paid for the lessons. For that, I've thanked her and will continue to do so. Richard, however, taught me to play, showed me the path to teaching myself, and is just as responsible for the joy and the friends and the cash and the therapy that music brings to my life.

I can’t imagine how my life would be different when I think of the people the guitar has brought into my life. I love the sound of the instrument, I love to play it, and I love to call myself a guitar player. Richard was a big part of that.

Finally twenty one years after my first lesson, I was finally able to say to Richard, if only through a private Facebook message…

“Thanks”.

It’s not a big enough word sometimes.

I hope he realizes that. I hope he has a clue of the effect he’s had on my life. And I hope that someday my playing or teaching or recordings will have a similar effect on someone else.

Again, Richard, “Thanks.”