(September 2020. An interlude and a story about the time I got recognized in public.)

A while back, after I wrote the post about my last week of freshman year at UJ, I decided that every six months in my fictional chronology, I would take a break from the story and write about something else. Six months has passed in the story, so it is time for a non-story post. Last week’s episode ended on kind of a dark note, but the beginning of sophomore year was kind of a dark time for me. I spent a lot of time alone and wishing life was different. But some big things will be happening soon.

Anyway, if you are new here, welcome, and say hi. It is very nice to meet you. Don’t Let The Days Go By is an episodic continuing story set in 1995 (so far) about a university student trying to make his way in life. I have been writing DLTDGB for almost two years now, since December 2018. It is based on my actual past, and I borrowed the title without permission from a line from a song popular at the time. If you have several hours to spare, you can start from the beginning and read the whole story.

I updated the dramatis personae a few days ago. I have introduced a lot of new people in the last few episodes. One thing that has kind of struck me as I have written this is how people come and go, in and out of the story. Sometimes I will realize that a certain story will be the last appearance of someone and wonder whatever happened to them. There is not always a good story behind someone’s disappearance; the most recent episode will probably be the last appearance of Mindy Jo, for example, and we just kind of grew apart for no particular reason as she stopped emailing as often. And I got the sense that a few of you who chose to comment were really rooting for me and Megan, but obviously that didn’t happen, and there will only be one more Megan episode. But that is life. If I am going to take on a project chronicling at least five and a half years of my life, there will naturally be people who were not an important part of all five and a half years.

Although I’m not doing this to get followers or be famous, I do enjoy comments on my posts, and it seems like I haven’t quite gotten as many recently. WordPress says I have 285 followers, but most of them I don’t know and don’t interact with. I suspect quite a few may be spam pages and the like. I know it goes both ways, though, and I try to read as many of your posts as I can, but I don’t have time to read everything, unfortunately. I’m glad I’ve made so many friends through blogging.

So, please, say hi. Leave a comment. Ask me anything that you are curious about. I will finish this post with an interesting story about the only time I’ve ever been recognized in public as a writer (kind of). I posted this on Facebook and Instagram back when it happened, in July, so some of you might have heard this story already. I was going to post four blog awards I have been tagged in over the last few months, but I’ll save those for a separate post in a few days so as not to make this too long.

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I had an interesting encounter this morning (this is adult Greg writing in July 2020).

I found myself on the road on no schedule heading in the general direction of Jeromeville. I decided to turn off the freeway and drive through on city streets to the Happy Place (pictured below; see the 3/1/95 episode for more).

A while ago, I bought a huge pack of socks that didn’t fit me well, so I kept those socks in my car to give to homeless people. Yesterday, I approached the intersection across the railroad track from where Murder Burger used to be, and I passed two guys holding a sign. While the light was red, I rolled down the window and asked if they needed socks. One came up to me and said yes. He thanked me, and I told him to have a nice day. I was a little nervous at this point, wondering if the light would turn green soon, so I thought I wasn’t quite understanding when he said something that sounded like “I remember you.”

What could that mean? How can he remember me? I’ve never seen him before; I don’t even live here. Wait, who is this guy? Did he know me when I lived here 20 years ago? I just smiled and nodded, confused; maybe I told him to have a great day or something.

“I remember you,” he repeated. “You’re an author, right?”

Wait, what?

And then I remembered. Ten months earlier, I was in Jeromeville for a game night with people not connected to the fact that I used to live there. Before going to my friends’ house, I stopped at Murder Burger and took pictures of the newly vacant building, knowing that I would use them for the blog (I eventually did in the Mid-June 1995 episode). This guy saw me and asked if I knew what happened to that place. I told him I had just read in the local news that they closed a month ago. I told him a little about my writing and how I used to live there. He asked, “You’re writing a book?” I said no, I was just an amateur writing a blog just for fun.

Back to yesterday. “Yes,” I told him. “I remember now. I saw you last year by Murder Burger, and we talked about my writing.”

“Yeah,” he said.

The light turned green. “I have to go, but I’ll see you around,” I said. “Take care.”

“You too!”

I felt bad that this guy recognized me after one chance encounter that happened almost a year ago, and I didn’t remember at first. I’m not good with faces. I don’t know his name, and he doesn’t know mine. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, and if I do, I don’t know if I’ll recognize him again. I don’t know what I can do for him. But I can watch for him on future trips to Jeromeville, since he apparently knows me now.

About a minute later, I turned on OJ Road and realized that this whole encounter happened with neither of us wearing masks. I was in the drivers’ seat, and he was at the passenger side window, so we weren’t exactly breathing on each other, but that’s still less than six feet, and these days [COVID-19] you never can be too careful. I wiped down the part of the car that he may have touched, I sanitized my hands three times, and I rolled down the windows and left them down for half an hour. And this is one of the things I hate most about this pandemic, that we all now feel like we have to be afraid of each other like this. It isn’t natural or healthy to be so afraid of close contact.

When I got to the Happy Place, I prayed for this man, that his life would turn around and he would get back on his feet. I don’t know what I can do for him, but God made our paths cross for a reason.