Very recently I have started piecing together random stories from a comic I’ve been writing since 7th grade, but I have an entry reserved just for that… This entry is a bit different.
While gathering information about this comic, I had to delve deeply into my old comic archives, some dating back to as early as 1990. Folded in one of them, I found several letters from old friends. Friends back then would come and go, and there really was no way to keep in touch with them, seeing how Al Gore didn’t invent the internet just yet.

I didn’t have very many friends in high school. My friends were my comic book characters. Every memory I have from back then is jumbled with bits and pieces of comic book. Back then I lived in my dreams, I guess. From 10th grade on, aside from my childhood friends Allison Behm, Cindy Melton, Wesley Rost and Lisa Jones, I had very few others who I considered “friends”.

It wasn’t until I saw the note folded neatly in my comic book that I remembered a name that I hadn’t heard in years.

Steve Kester was one of my friends since 9th grade. I remember he used to sit alone in gym class and I always wanted to go talk to him. My friend Lacie ended up working with him and she introduced me to him. We became very close friends almost immediately.

I found out that he didn’t have the greatest life of all. From what I gathered, he didn’t like his parents very much, so much that he and his sister moved out when he turned 18 and got their own place.

He was around more than any of my other friends back then. If he couldn’t get a ride, he would walk. He spent several thanksgiving dinners with my family. He would go on our French club trips with us, and our French teacher, Mrs. Grimes, even got he and his sister a full thanksgiving dinner one year through some sort of program.

When I was sad, he’d always be there, and we’d share stories, watch anime and eat taco bell, get pizza hut and play some video games. Sometimes I think I saw him more than I saw my family. I was sad and had my feelings hurt a lot in highschool, and people were downright mean to me many times, and he always stood up for me, no matter what.
He was in upward bound. He was one of the brightest people that I’ve known, and he was given a second chance through the school.

We graduated on June 7th, 1996. Of course, it’s natural that people who were friends in highschool don’t remain friends long after, especially if there is distance that separates them. Leaving that highschool was one of the happiest days of my life, but … sadly, it was one of the last times I ever saw Steve Kester.

He went to college, I think to East Stroudsburg for some sort of history degree, and I saw him a few times after that… but I was going to Kutztown and he was going there, so … it was hard to correspond. I got the internet in 1998, and by then, he was gone.

It’s probably been ten years since I’ve seen him, but I still wonder where he is, what he is doing, and if he is okay.

Myspace has reconnected me to many people who I lost touch with over the years, including my best friend from 3rd - 7th grade, Shannon Kitlas, who I talk to all the time now and I am more thankful than anyone could ever be for that fact, but there are a few casualties that I’m afraid I’ll be unable to recover.

That being said, if anyone reads this blog and knows his whereabouts, please let me know. I just want to know that he’s alive and okay. Afterall, it’s not everyday that you realize that a person that you took for granted in highschool was actually one of the best friends you’ve ever had.

That’s me and Steve at graduation, yikes, look at my crappy bangs. What kinda hair is that, Sara! Anyway, man, I miss you. I hope you’re doing all right.