Lost Friends - Randal Schneider

Ok, so being that I met up with a friend that I hadn't seen in close to 11 years and we just had a graduating class go through it made me start thinking about never seeing students again. Now as I said before, this is the first class I got to know...3 years sharing drama, laughter, and sadness with them. And I will always be curious to see what happened to them. And it's this curiosity that makes me remember my friend Randal Schneider.

So let me set the stage, I have just transfered from Mt. Sac to Cal State Fullerton and am beginning all of my classes in my major. Now when you start in your major you have classes with a ton of people that you will see over and over again. It wasn't until my second class that I met Randal. We hit it off right away. We both liked alot of common things, computers, games, music, and of course Star Wars. Before I knew it, Randal was my best friend at school. We used to hang out on the weekends sometimes studying, most of the time screwing around making fun of some of the students that didn't understand the material. I remember one class we had in a computer lab, I sat there planning a trip to Laughlin via train. Well I was convinced a train had to stop in Laughlin, when I found out it went through it but didn't stop he sarcastically said I could jump out...of course I started laughing and our professor got upset. Laughing in class with Randal was a common theme. I can't count the number of times either he or I had to get up and leave class because we were crying from laughing so much. Or the semester he sat in on one of my classes because he had a break and didn't have anything else to do.

Now Randal was one of the smartest people I have ever met. Let me put it this way; he started out as an Engineering major, then decided to double major in Mathematics because they shared a bunch of classes. Then to top it off he was planning on doing a triple major with computer science... that's just insane. No matter what grade I got, he always got a higher grade. I remember the last class we had in summer school (Advanced Calculus) he had a solid A most of the summer, myself a solid C. We were laughing how this would be the 1st time I wouldn't get one grade lower...unless I pulled off an A+ on the final. Well, the two of us studied pretty hard for that test and he showed me some proofs that I had forgotten minutes before the test started. As luck would have it, those proofs were on the test. I ended up acing that damn final and got a B in the class. In the fall, my wife and I got married while I finished up my last semester. Randal was the only person from school I invited. He showed up, had a good time. We didn't have any classes that semester and we barely saw each other. Our friendship kinda ended on a whimper.

Now before you start saying, just look him up online...I have. I can't find that guy to save my life. He used to have a Prof Fink screen name (huge Simpsons, Futurama fan) and he changed it.

So what's the point? I always tell people don't become the next Randal. I know I should have made a better effort as well, but I have learned not to take friends for granted. When I left UPS after 5 years, I told my 5 closest friends this story and we have done a pretty good job of staying in touch...not as much as I thought we would, but we still get together a few times a year.

I miss Randal and am always curious as to what happened to him.

So as another year comes to a close, I wonder how many of my students will become Randals. I am sure I will have 1 or 2 come back for a few years, but then drift away. Sad story huh? But at least I found someone I hadn't seen in 11 years.