Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. But I was.
It all began harmlessly last week. It was a few hours after the news broke about the passing of Tom Seaver. I actually had gotten condolence notes on Facebook.
I was watching the Dodger game and the house phone rang. The phone usually tells me it's out-of-area and hence, a robo call which I will ignore. But this one said it was from a "wireless caller." Hmm, that could be a friend. I looked at the area code. I recognized it as a county in New York.
I picked it up.
He asked if I was....insert my name. He actually used the childhood variation of my name. Hmmm. I confirmed.
Was I the same person who lived on South 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York?
I confirmed and was now curious. And a bit nervous.
Was I the person who had been a big fan of Tom Seaver as a kid?
Okay, who is this?
Well, it turns out that it was a kid I grew up with in the neighborhood. Just guessing out loud, I would say that I had not heard from him in about a half century. He had heard about Seaver's passing and thought about me.
It was pleasant enough. He had tracked me down to California. He even knew what was going on with some of our mutual friends. Over the course of the conversation, he had a lot of specific and personal information.
Okay, I'll bite. How do you know all this stuff? And, no, he admitted to not being on social media.
Well, said old friend is a Jehovah's Witness. Since they no longer solicit door-to-door, they used a big directory of names to cold call on the phone.
And apparently this reference tool knows everything about me. And you.
Chew on that for a while.
Dinner last night: Sandwich.
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