FIND OLD FRIENDS ON THE INTERNET ©2003 Deborah Henson-Conant
This essay was written in April '03 for WBGH radio, then recorded and edited for their series of artist's essays.

FIND OLD FRIENDS ON THE INTERNET

Find old friends on the Internet.

Yeah right.

When I was a kid, we moved every year, so every year I went to a new school in a new state Ð sometimes in a new country. And when I look back -- people are stuck inside those years the way characters are stuck inside of books. You canât get them out again Ð theyâre inside. So finding old friends is like trying to find a book you left on the train twenty years ago.

But thatâs why I like libraries.

You know, when I was 8, we moved to this town with a great library and a great librarian. She showed me everything about her library: the card catalogue, the Dewey Decimal system. It was a like a whole world -- you could find anything in her library. And then she handed me a book. She said, ãHere, you might like this. Itâs a detective story. About a pig.

äFreddy," it said. "Freddy the Detective."

Weâd read about detectives in school. But they werenât pigs.

But Freddy was a very smart pig. He taught himself to read and write. Then he and his sidekick, Jinx, the cat became detectives. They solved unsolvable mysteries; they travelled; they educated the other animals; they even met the president.

I read all the ãFreddy the Pigä books. I loved Freddy the Pig.

But then we moved, again. And Freddy and Jinx lived in that library, in that town, in that year of my life. They stayed behind, like all my other friends. And that year closed like a book. Nobody, in my new town, had ever heard of Freddy the Pig. I asked. I asked for years, in many new towns. But it seemed like Freddy had never really existed - except in my imagination.

Then last year, I was in Kateâs Mystery Bookstore in Cambridge, and just on a whim, I said, ãYou know, Kate, I read this detective story once about a pig.ä And she said, ãOh yeah, sure, Freddy.ä

So it was true, Freddy the Pig really existed! I went home and told my boyfriend all about Freddy the Pig, all about Freddy and Jinxâs adventures, their farmyard, their society. How funny they were. All the great things they did.He said it sounded like ãAnimal Farmä in a parallel universe.

And then a couple weeks later a plain, brown, cardboard package showed up at my house. I opened it and inside: there was Freddy. "Freddy the Detective," "Freddy goes to Florida," "Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars."

"Where did you GET these?!??" I asked my boyfriend.

"E-bay," he said.

E-bay? Freddy is on E-bay?

So now, Freddy and Jinx and the entire barnyard are in MY house, on MY bookshelves. And this morning, when I saw these old books, these old friends I thought Iâd never see again Ð I suddenly realized it was true.

It IS true.

You CAN find old friends on the internet.

(© Deborah Henson-Conant / 2003)