I talked to Joe Fouts yesterday

and confirmed that he is, in fact, the office manager for Bertschland Family Practice Clinic in Cambridge City. The previously linked article has also been corrected to get the facts straight.

But here's the really great part- I knew when I read his name in an article about Dublin Indiana, that he had to be the same guy that I knew and was friends with back when I was a teen. And thanks to this marvelous internetz thing, it was simple to locate Joe and call him on my cell phone- another marvelous thing, and say Hi after 32 years.

Now my spousal unit thinks that is just the strangest behavior- to pick up the phone and call someone, or to swap email with classmates from 3 decades ago. Maybe its a Midwestern thing because my Dad certainly shares the trait as do many of my old classmates, but for me, I love the ability to connect to people that were friends and still are friends in spite of miles or years.

Joe and I had a really great chat. He asked about my folks and my brothers & sister. We talked about our kids and places we have lived or traveled to. We talked a little bit about the USAF because he has an offspring living in Germany thanks to the AF's "see the world" plan. I told him how I managed to end up here in Utah after fleeing the corn fields of Indiana. Joe caught me up about people we both know and remembered. I praised him for his 15 minutes of fame on the internet this week and he told me how the town meeting transpired in such a way that Tom Daschle really did show up in Dublin even when nobody local expected to see him. Joe was pretty pleased to be invited to participate in this meeting and it seemed that he did a thorogh job of sharing the patient's problems he sees every day.

So, it was fun to just give him a call, out of the blue, and chat. He sounded happy and healthy and actively engaged in running Bertschland Clinic. Happy New Year Joe!