One up, one down

I heard the news today, oh boy.

I heard from my father that one of my high school friends whom I haven't spoken to since graduation day, 17 years ago, went to college for some combination of aviation and architecture and is now the lead engineer on some project at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Wow. Good for him.

And, I heard that another of my high school friends, whom I think I saw once, the year after graduation, was just arrested for persuading two girls, 11 and 17, into having sex, and for distributing photographs of the event, a.k.a. producing and distributing child pornography. Whew. That sucks. He was a good guy, when I knew him back in high school; a bit of a trouble-maker, smart, bored with school, musically gifted and restless (ya know, a high school kid). We were pretty close, and I never would've guessed he'd do anything like that. But, I guess a lot can change in the time it takes to double your age.

The blogger in me wants to link to the on-line newspaper article, simply because bloggers like to reference the things they talk about, when there's a link available. But the rest of me is a mixture of shame, fear of being associated (even 17 years out), sadness, and most importantly wanting to spare his family whatever possible grief any more attention could bring.