Franckle Found!

After finding the note from my long ago student and posting about it Thursday, several folks here and on Facebook encouraged me to have a look for him to make sure he saw the blog post.

So with the help of Mr. Google, I did look. And found several possible addresses -- some in Florida and one right here in Marshall. Nah, I said, couldn't be.  There were no email addys nor were there telephone numbers.  So I tried Facebook.

A Robert Franckle who looked like the guy I remembered had an account -- obviously inactive. So I looked on FB for a woman who Google listed as a connection. Bingo! I had found Robert's ex-wife. She kindly told me that her and Robert's daughter was also on FB and gave me her name.

Said daughter told me that Robert did, indeed, live in Marshall but was at his hunting camp in South Carolina at the moment. She also gave me a phone number.

I called and left a message and yesterday morning early got a  call from Robert who was on his way back to NC. Neither of us could quite believe that we lived so near to one another. Arrangements were made and last night, my long lost student -- who has been living about a half an hour away for several years now -- came to dinner!

 Robert is just as sweet as I remembered. It was a delightful evening of 'do you remember?' and 'did you know?' during which we also discovered that one of John's crazy friends from University of South Florida was later a friend of Robert's. 

It still seems vaguely unreal that a note, written almost fifty years ago and rediscovered on Wednesday could so quickly have led to the author of the note sitting at our dinner table on Friday night.

Thanks to those of you that encouraged me to search! Who could have foreseen such an outcome! 

It Fluttered to the Floor . . .

I'm still going through drawers and boxes and files in the great purge of my workroom and at some point, this folded bit of paper did, indeed, flutter to the floor.

Dear Mrs. Skemp, it said  ( my married name, remember, and the one I was known by when I taught English at Berkeley Prep in Tampa many long years ago.)

Someday when this flutters to the floor and you pick it up to read it, remember me and return it to the book to flutter down again to be reminded again.

I want you to know you were an inspiring and delightful teacher.

        May 1968,

       Robert Franckle 

     A Romantic and Adventurer

I'd forgotten this note but not Robert -- a member of my senior English class -- who, as I recall, loved to go fishing in Tampa Bay more than anything.  Really, one of the sweetest guys you could imagine.

That was my last year at Berkeley. John and I left to go to Iowa where John entered grad school A year later we ran into Franckle (as he was called) in London on the last day of our great motorcycle adventure. It was a brief and joyous reunion and I've never seen him since.

I had a look for him just now on the Internet and he seems to be still in the Tampa Bay area -- I hope he's still fishing, I hope he's still a Romantic and an Adventurer.

And I wish I could tell him how welcome and heartwarming his note was in the midst of a dreary, tedious task.  I'll put it back so that I may have the joy of being delighted by it all over again.