We started watching Just One Look, a 6 episode Polish miniseries based on a Harlan Coben novel, which is loosely about a missing person, and it got me thinking about all those people I used to see when I was younger, but who have disappeared from my life completely.

I remember quite a number of them, even though I can’t remember all of their names.

There are two, however, that I will mention by name…..just in case they happen to be married to your sister. They were both my friends when we lived in Clayton MO, and I was in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.

Does anyone know where Danny Schwartz or Roger McKnight are? Danny was my best friend in those years. We often walked home from school together and we went to Wiggins Ozark Camp together. His parents had a children’s clothing store in Clayton called Lads and Lassies. Danny’s mother died of leukemia in her 40s, and his father closed the shop and moved with Danny and his sister back to his hometown of San Angelo, TX. That’s the last I heard of Danny. (I remember one remark of Danny, at summer camp, when he told me that the two of us were very lucky because nobody could tell we were so smart).  I don’t think that Roger and I went to school together, but we lived on the same block. For two summers, we operated the very successful (some of the time) unlicensed Hessel-McKnight Detective Agency, dedicated to solving the mysteries of the neighborhood. You may have read about the mystery of the slashed lawn chair; I am sure it was in all the top newspapers.  The McKnights moved, too….to Oregon. The detective Agency did not survive.

My list really doesn’t include high school, college, or law school classmates. There are all sorts of ways to figure out where most of those folks are.

When I think back to those days, those who are missing are mainly female. There are young women I was friendly with, and even dated, whose names I can’t even pull up. What does that say about me in the ’60s?

Who was that cute girl I took out a number of times who went to Boston University? I couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it.

When I was at Yale, there were only 7 females in my 175 member law school class and I know what happened to them. But there were also women in the Yale graduate schools (no undergraduates) with whom I associated, some of whom I knew fairly well. With one exception (if you know who I am referring to, you know), they are all lost to time.

But all of that was a long time ago, I guess. During the two post-law school years I hung around St. Louis, I spent time with all sorts of people. Some, I had already known. Many not. Some were in my army reserve unit. Where is Don, my Polish friend from East St. Louis? He had gone to minority heavy E. St. Louis High School and came out quite prejudiced; wanted to make sure his kids went to an all white school, so they wouldn’t be. Where is that woman I dated over that very hot summer when I saved money by renting a St. Louis apartment with no air conditioning? At least I remember her name.

When I was in Army basic training at Ft. Ord CA, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. We were on a rifle range when it was announced, and cheers went up. Part of my training company were reservists from Lafayette LA, and they led the cheers. But one guy, my friend, who had graduated high school and was working at a gas station, and was extraordinarily nice, was appalled. What was his name? Where can he be? Or what about the nice young man who could do everything but read? You would never know it if you met him. But our drill sergeant had me work with him intensively, so he could pass a written proficiency test. And speaking of that drill sergeant, where is he? A very genuine man, whose ancestors had, by chance, been slaves on a farm owned by the ancestors of a recruit in the company. I remember (or think I remember) he was from Pine Bluff AR.

When I got to Washington, things got even more confusing. Where is my friend Jeff, who lived with his wife in a Mies van der Rohe building in SW DC, where two of the living room walls were floor to ceiling glass, and other two had multiple doors, so that hanging anything on a wall was not possible? Or my now nameless friend with the very strong Boston accent who bought a new Dodge Dart, but called it a Darge Daht? Where is that nice girl who lived down the street and doubled as my dental hygienist? Where is my secretary at HUD, who was a very nice Prince George’s County country girl, whose father just happened to own several hundred acres of prime future urbanized land? Where is my red-headed friend with the uncontrollable stutter, who could play the guitar and sing with no stutter at all? Where is my friend’s ex-wife who surprised him one day by saying good-bye and running off with the head of the university department where she taught?

For a while , I went out with a GW law student. I know where she is (or was), but what happened to her friend who remained my friend and whose husband’s family (maybe father) had worked in Pennsylvania for the family of one of my law partners?

Edie and I had a lot of friends in the early years of our marriage who have disappeared. Where is the guy who, no matter what the topic, preface each remark with “there is a case about that…” (“Can you pass the salt, please?” “There is a case about that.”) Where is our friend who had no real interest in anything Jewish other than he wanted to study Talmud?

I could go on and on. But I don’t want to overwhelm you. You know any of the people mentioned above? There might be a reward.