Most surprising finds when you google people from your past?

[Jingthing]

Do you sometimes google people you know from the past that you've lost contact with long ago?

 

I'm certain many of you do. 

 

So here's the place to share the most surprising, most sensational discoveries you have found when you do that.

 

Googling a childhood friend yesterday I found nothing on him but did see stuff about his much higher profile older brother (who I also used to know).

 

I've been aware of his important but rather mainstream career over the years, which was no surprise because he was obviously a genius (played chess all the time, always the top of his class), while his stoner brother my good friend was amusingly of below average intelligence.

 

But in the past there was nothing very surprising about his career. But now in quite older years, he has become a major league highly visible American COMMUNIST! Not talking Bernie Sanders style, but hard core hammer and sickle. 

 

I wasn't completely shocked knowing his family background, but I was definitely surprised.

 

Have you got some stories like that? If so, let's hear them. 

 

Note: I use the word google in a generic sense, like Xerox. The actual search engine that I use is:

 

DuckDuckGo — Privacy, simplified.

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by Jingthing

[tonray]

I'm actually surprised how many are still alive

[Jingthing]

Just now, tonray said:

I'm actually surprised how many are still alive

Yeah I was going to mention that discovering people are alive are dead isn't particularly surprising. People from our past are going to be one of those by default.

 

But of course unusual or newsworthy types of deaths would definitely rate for this topic. You know, like falling in the gap of the Oakland Bay Bridge during the Loma Prieta earthquake, that sort of thing. 

[ukrules]

One guy I knew from school was sent to prison for murdering his next door neighbour.

 

He was always a bit of a <deleted>, he's where he belongs now - life sentence in prison.

 

[OneMoreFarang]

I was surprised that my sister has her own Wikipedia page (not made by her).

[The Hammer2021]

Never have except once. Couldn't find a pal of mine from my teen years. Best let's sleeping dogs lye.  Simply not interested. There was a fad in the 90s for looking up old school friends but it's a sign of weakness. FB seems to cover such things but FB is the spawn of the devil.

Edited July 11, 2021 by The Hammer2021

[The Hammer2021]

9 minutes ago, ukrules said:

One guy I knew from school was sent to prison for murdering his next door neighbour.

 

He was always a bit of a <deleted>, he's where he belongs now - life sentence in prison.

 

Mine did hard time for kidnapping but I didn't find out in Google! He was in a nightclub. Funny guy..but even at 13 a little bit tough. Always glad he was in my gang fighting with me!

[1FinickyOne]

47 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I wasn't completely shocked knowing his family background,

upper west side, left wing summer camps? 

 

Not found from google but from mutual friends... as not long ago was a 50th reunion... some surprising stuff, some turnarounds as typical, popular succesful athletic guy, a bust, but younger psycho brother, a talent... 

 

 

[The Hammer2021]

Usually adults leave communism and socialism behind as they mature unless they're millionaires..Which makes them repellent for two issues. Hypocrites lacking in a moral compass

[OneMoreFarang]

When I saw pictures from my school reunion I was surprised to see so many old people. 

[Pravda]

This is something I did when internet was invented. These days I simply don't care.

[Seth1a2a]

Two socially awkward "Blond" girls from high school in the early seventies turned out to be prodigies in reality. One became a prima ballerina and the other a gifted singer. Both had been dismissively branded as bimbos and it's great to see how well they prevailed.  

[KhunBENQ]

In the early 1980s I did some three month internship as part of engineering studies.

That was at a telecom departement of a major German company.

I had to do with a more senior student who was kind of a mentor for me.

It was purely work related so didn't learn about his private life.

Forgot about him.

 

2001: I read about the "cannibal of Rothenburg" who had butchered a man who voluntarily gave in to him. Save you from the grizzly details.

At first the articles were all with no names/photos.

Day after day it become more clear who was butchered. Details and photo and I was really shocked to learn that this fellow student had terrible desires.

 

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by KhunBENQ

[RichardColeman]

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

So here's the place to share the most surprising, most sensational discoveries you have found when you do that.

That every one of my friends from school and my youth had/have fatter kids than we were !

 

[clivebaxter]

All the people I knew in the 70's seem to have never changed, still socialists who hate America and Israel and always going on about the poor Palestinians. They all like the same music they did then and are forever posting those daft 'deep' memes on facebook. Always asking for people to sign lefty petitions and for charity donation for the birthdays. I had a laugh today looking at one on fb, some drivel along the all you need is love line- he neglected his kids, knocked the Mrs about and was a heroin dealer, the Mrs drank herself to death. Anyone who disagrees with them is a fascist or a Nazi of course, would not want to meet any of them again.

[Jingthing]

Of course Facebook finds are included too. Personally I detest FB but I should have mentioned it.

[Jingthing]

2 hours ago, The Hammer2021 said:

Usually adults leave communism and socialism behind as they mature unless they're millionaires..Which makes them repellent for two issues. Hypocrites lacking in a moral compass

I guess the stereotype is usually true that people tend to get more conservative as they age. In the case of my surprise I assume his commitment to communism is sincere and intellectually based. 

[Jingthing]

3 hours ago, 1FinickyOne said:

upper west side, left wing summer camps? 

....

 

 

Not even close.

Red diaper baby parents.

Midwestern working class. 

[cobra]

This invariably leads to Googling ourselves.

Not recommended, ignorance is bliss.

 

 

[The Hammer2021]

3 hours ago, andy said:

Not so much surprise, but more like the opposite.  Like seeing how friends and acquaintances are stuck in the same dead end towns or doing the same dead end jobs 20 - 30 years later.

 

Not from googling, but about 7 years back I think I was visiting family in the US and ran into one of my friends from 8th grade.  He was working at OfficeMax.  He asked where I lived, and I explained I lived in a big US city for awhile, but I was living in Thailand recently, and was heading to another expat gig in another country soon.  My friend just had a blank look on his face, like something didn't register.  This guy had never been out of the tiny sh*thole no opportunity town that we grew up in...

My pal same..shocked incomprehension

[The Hammer2021]

32 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Not even close.

Red diaper baby parents.

Midwestern working class. 

No excuse then!

[The Hammer2021]

36 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I guess the stereotype is usually true that people tend to get more conservative as they age. In the case of my surprise I assume his commitment to communism is sincere and intellectually based. 

There can be no intellectual base for communism for anybody with experience of it Only from western bourgeois intellectuals. They are the murderous equal of ISIS or the National Social Party but drenched with blood, murder and sanctimonious...as for sincerity....that compunds a murderous ideology is meaningless and misplaced.

[The Hammer2021]

49 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Of course Facebook finds are included too. Personally I detest FB but I should have mentioned it.

Those who truly detest FB eschew it.. It, like Twitter is social cancer...

[Damrongsak]

I had an acquaintance who was a friend of my neighbor who I hung with in high school.  He was into guitars and music back in the late 60's.  He was always trading guitars and amplifiers. Years later I looked him up and he's still a musician.  For a time, he was an "artist in residence" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. 

 

Pete Kennedy.  From his web site:  "...I've taken part in so many great moments, without ever having the burdens of fame and fortune. "  555, that's Pete. He used to drive an old pink Rambler station wagon when muscle cars were the fad.

------------------------

One of the guys in my Peace Corp group back in 1977 went on to write the Thailand travel book for Lonely Planet.  (Blame him for popularizing some of the islands and out of the way places.)  One time, Mick Jagger looked him up in BKK and they spent a day or two sightseeing together.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Damrongsak

[gk10012001]

I can't say that reading of their deaths was a surprise as I am 64 and mortality is starting to be expected at these ages.  I was surprised to see some that died a few years before of cancer and other illnesses.  Some died under bad conditions such as murder, a suicide ,or two.  Just things you don't expect growing up in the 60s and 70s and every thing was just simpler.  Most of my engineering college buddies and fraternity buddies have done well.  Some working 35 years at the same big company (Pratt and Whitney for example), some are GSA employees.  Neighborhood kids I grew up and still keep in touch with are punching out next year when they hit 65.  Each had/has a working wife or free houses from their parents so they will be able to get by.  This is all from Rhode Island, and the University of Rhode Island.  Mom, Pop, apple pie, boy scouts, era.  Half of us were Eagle scouts.  All the successful ones, had "stable" parents, no divorces, same houses growing up with no moving around.  The suicides I can't explain.  They were not my closest friends, but some that were on my High School cross country team, played on the hockey team, or went to college for a while.  casual but frequent contact growing up.

 

  One or two ex girlfriends seem to be doing OK.  One was a JAG in the Air Force I met while at Squadron Officer School.  She left the service after 10 years, now does some community law work.  Another is married, has two kids, bought a vacation home in New Hampshire near where we used to play.  Happy for her. 

Edited July 11, 2021 by gk10012001
additions

[DogNo1]

Speaking of the Lima Prieta Earthquake - I used to hold my breath whenever I drove on the Nimitz Freeway.  After the quake, it was horrible seeing all of the people squashed when sections of the upper deck fell.  It was a disaster waiting to happen.  Fortunately, I was living in Berkeley at the time.

[Lacessit]

Many years ago, I went to a school reunion. I could recognize only one person.

I must have lived with undistinguished company, no-one I formerly knew has made themselves famous for anything.

I'm not on Facebook, totally uninterested in what some narcissist had for breakfast.

[1FinickyOne]

9 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

When I saw pictures from my school reunion I was surprised to see so many old people. 

About 4 years ago I went w/my wife and kid to Krabi... we stayed in a nice hotel and at breakfast was a very neat professorial looking silver-haired fellow and he was joined by an attractive, acceptably younger Thai lady in a pleasant sun dress. I thought I hope we look that nice when we get older - - - then I realized we were probably about the same age.

[Excel]

I find I find out the most about past acquaintences by searching the obituaries. Thats the problem with old age

[1FinickyOne]

42 minutes ago, Excel said:

I find I find out the most about past acquaintences by searching the obituaries. Thats the problem with old age

well, not as bad as them searching the obits for you? I am sure many think I am dead too..