The email arrived at The Floyd Press offices last week.

Would you please pass this email onto Doug? I think we were high school buddies and I would like to correspond with him if he is the same Doug Thompson. He should be in his late 50s and when in high school drove a 57 Ford.

The email came from Roy West, an old friend from our high school days and in Roanoke. Roy graduated three years ahead of me and went on to engineering school at Virignia Tech before landing a job at a firm in Roanoke. I followed him to to the Star City in 1965 when I went to work for The Roanoke Times.

We hung out together (as kids say today), chased girls together and partied more than we should. Roy drove a black MGA roadster before replacing it with a Mustang. When a plane crashed on Groundhog Mountain, he drove me up to the crash site so I could shoot photos for the Times.

I answered his email and left a phone number. He called on Sunday and we talked for more than an hour. He lives with his wife and children in Florida, north of Tampa, and owns his own firm now. He talked about a building project in Gibsonton, known as “Gib-town” to the locals. I knew all about Gib-town. I was born in Tampa and spent the first five years of my life in Gib-town.

Over the years, I’ve hooked up with a number of old friends through the Internet. Roy was the latest. Hopefully, he won’t be the last.