Head Tale

I’ve made a few passing references to my semester exchange to England in 1995 on this blog but I don’t know if I’ve ever told the story in a bit greater detail.

I will do that someday for sure as that four month period remains (and *please* don’t tell Shea I said this!) ;-), the single greatest extended stretch of time in my life.

I was young. I was traveling abroad for the first time in my life. Due to a summer sales job that had an extremely lucrative commission structure and per diems, I was flush with cash.  (how ludicrous?  My hourly wage from that job, twenty years ago, worked out to about the same (or maybe even more) than I’m making now per hour that many years and two degrees, including a Masters, later!)  I was arriving in Britain at the height of the Cool Britannia movement.  I was at a small college in York in Northern England which had a number of exchange programs with schools around the world which meant I got to interact with and go on dedicated excursions around the UK and to the continent with other students from Germany, Japan, Norway and of course, the United States.  I had some of the most unique experiences I will ever have in my life – and I’m not just talking about visiting old castles! 😉

One of the coolest people I met and became friends with was named Brian Smith.  He was an English major from a college in York, Pennsylvania with a wicked sense of humour (thinking of his stories about playing on the intramural softball team which was mostly comprised of crackheads makes me laugh to this day!) and more importantly, sense of the absurd.

I don’t remember how we met or started hanging out but him and I, along with a couple who came together from New Hampshire, were inseparable by the end of the semester.  We formed a “folk punk” band called “The Banned” that would’ve given Spinal Tap a run for their money (except I don’t think we ever knew if we were serious or not!)

I still have a VHS tape of some of The Banned’s “performances” which were recorded using a video camera I borrowed from the Film Studies Department.  Technically this was to shoot video for a class I was taking.  Instead, that camera recorded things that may have gotten us deported from the UK if the videos got out! 😉

Why am I writing this all now?  I was in England in 1995 which was before Facebook and social media and really, was the first time I got introduced to e-mail and the web.  That meant that when I returned to Canada, it was extremely difficult to keep up with all the new friends I met.  We had e-mail but as people convocated and moved and got jobs, I lost track of more and more of my new friends.

It wasn’t until Facebook got big over the last few years that I was able to re-connect with many of the people I met during that exchange.  But this only worked for the ones whose full names I could remember and/or whom I could find via mutual Facebook friends.

I found that couple from New Hampshire but could never find Brian (curses for having America’s most common name, this side of John Smith.)

This weekend, as I was reminiscing about my England exchange while watching Blur at the Coachella Festival, I was inspired to try a different approach than occasional Google, Facebook, LinkedIn searches I’d used in trying to find Brian over the years.  I was pretty sure I remembered the name of the college he’d gone to and obviously knew (roughly) the years he’d been there.  I sent an e-mail to the alumni office late Saturday night and forgot about it.

I wasn’t too hopeful as I’d done something similar while trying to find a friend I’d gone to undergrad with here in Regina without success.  So it was doubtful that a school so far away, for a student who’d been there so long ago and who I’d met in a totally different country entirely would be on record.

But lo and behold, first thing this morning I got a reply that they did have a record for a Brian Smith who convocated in 1999.  They couldn’t give me more info for confidentiality reasons but could forward my e-mail and see if he responded.  I wrote back and said “sure” and told them to mention the title of one of our Banned “songs” as a code word (actually, it was a word that we used as the title for five of the first six songs we wrote – like I said, pure Spinal Tap!)

Later today, I got an e-mail directly from Brian…Francis.

Huh?

My first thought upon seeing the name was that not only did they not find Brian Smith but they somehow got the wrong guy completely.  But when I opened the e-mail, it was clearly the same guy I’d looked for off and on for twenty years.

And the story about the different name?  My first thought that he’d joined some weird religion where the man takes the wife’s name when they got married (which seemed like a Brian thing to do).  But the real answer, given my own background working with writers, was one I should’ve guessed.

Turns out Brian published a book last year (with another on the way this fall) and has been using a pseudonym to help differentiate between his publishing career and his personal life.  (His sense of humour is still intact too!)

And how fitting that I – English degree, a decade in the Canadian book industry, now a librarian – would bond with someone who would end up getting published?

So I won’t be using any of those Banned videos for today’s Music Monday post (the Banned came by their name honestly).  But instead, will post one of the many Phish songs I got introduced to as we sat in Brian’s room before “rehearsals”.  (Notice how every reference to anything Banned related in this post has quotes around it?  That’s on purpose!)