A high school friend of mine, Paul Bonser, wrote on his blog today about how social networking has helped him keep in touch with some folks from high school back in good old Rainier, OR. Paul specifically referenced me in his post — he talks about how he found my site via my Facebook page.

I remember one day we got together and created a couple songs using Sony Acid Pro 3.0. That software changed my life, and hanging with Paul, that was the first time I had ever used it. He taught me some techniques in Acid, and it was soon that I began to create my own music. This was around my junior year of high school I think, early 2001.

Paul and a couple of his friends ended up getting together and formed a musical collective called SomeThing Dark. Their only release was a CD called “In The Soul” that was recorded and mastered in Paul’s basement. It had some good sounds on it, and I thought they did a wonderful job even though no record labels picked up on it. The thing that impressed me the most about it was of the group, there were a couple people in there who were considered social outcasts yet for a time those in the “in” crowd were wowed by their creative ability.

My friends at RHS spanned from the jocks to the skaters, from the partygoers to the outcasts. I tried to follow my Dad’s example that he set in high school and become friends with everyone. It really was the only way to survive high school for a guy like me, having never attended public school before my time at Rainier High. My mantra was to be everyone’s friend, no matter how different they were. And it worked. I made a ton of friends and I look back at my high school experience positively.

After my graduation in 2002 and every year since, I have always wondered how all my friends are doing now. It would be pretty neat to get together with them all (one on one and collectively) and have coffee, share how far our lives have come, and laugh at some of the good old times back in Rainier.

Rainier really wasn’t all that bad of a place, and it was home to some of the best people I ever knew in life.

You never really know what you had until it’s gone — or until you leave it.