One of my favorite television shows is Monk, where Tony Shalhoub portrays a dectective with a crippling case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Shalhoub’s charcater, Adrian Monk, is a brilliant detective who can find the most obscure clue one could dream of and use it to solve a case which no one else can. On the other hand, he cannot function in social situations. I cringe at these many instances, because it reminds me so much of me.

Monk’s gift, as he calls it, is a “blessing and a curse”.

Same with me and my memory.

I will remember arcane details about events from years ago. Here’s a great example…

Yesterday, I was playing trivia with Robb in Kansas City, and there was a list of notable figures who had been assassinated. The question asked who was assassinated in 1995? I didn’t even need to look at the list of answers to know it was Yitzak Rabin, then the premier of Israel. The other choices were Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X, Anwar Sadat and Martin Luther King Jr. I immediately pointed out to Robb the years the other leaders were assassinated. He sat there in stunned silence and bragged to Jarrod Myers, the general manager of the Buffalo Wild Wings Robb and I frequent, about how I could do that.

On the other hand, my memory is so good that I will remember too many painful things in my life. Crista is quick to point this out to me. So does Peggy.

Right now, I’m going to delve into a very painful part of my memory, one that comes up often.

I’m going to list some people whom I have had no contact whatsoever with in many, many years. People I would give anything to see again. ANYTHING.

5. Wendy (Durr) Wall

How we met: Wendy came to work in LSU’s sports information office when she was a graudate student in LSU’s journalism school in 1997 and 1998. Unlike someone else I once worked with at LSU (see below), I knew Wendy was off-limits because she was already married.

Wendy and I got along very well, save for a few bumps in the road. I did all I could to help her while she was handling publicity for the softball team in 1998, even though I had a lot to do with baseball.

One day, I got really worried when she didn’t show up in the office in the morning. I was panicked. Thankfully, I saw her just before I left with Bill Franques and Jim Hawthorne for a baseball game that night in Lake Charles against McNeese State.

Wendy got her master’s degree in the fall of 1998 and moved with her husband, Sid, to Houston. She had a son, Davis, in late 2002, so he is now 15.

Last time I saw her: September 28, 2002 at the LSU-Mississippi State football game. I saw her and Sid twice in Houston, once while my father, brother and I were in town for an Astros-Royals series at what was then Enron Field (now Minute Maid Park) in 2000, and again during the LSU-Rice super regional in 2002. I got Wendy and Sid tickets to the super regional, and that’s when Wendy told me she was pregnant with Davis. She contacted me via e-mail in December 2003, but nothing since.

I attempted to contact her through Facebook during the floods of Hurricane Harvey in August. God I hope she, Sid and Davis (and any other kids) are okay.

I know she’s busy, but I don’t get why she won’t contact me.

4. Rebecca (Borne) Brennan

How we met: Rebecca’s dad is Dan Borne, the public address announer for LSU football and men’s basketball games. I met Dan and Rebecca at the 1994 LSU football media day, the last for then-coach Curley Hallman (THANK GOD). Rebecca and I worked togehter in LSU’s sports information office our first semester in school, but I was fired by Herb Vincent for incompetence (something that needed to be done, even though I didn’t see it then). I left LSU after the spring semester and went home to attend the University of New Orleans because I was immature. Rebecca stayed at LSU, but quit the sports information office after December 1995.

I kept contact with Rebecca throughout 1996 and returned to LSU at the beginning of 1997. I really liked her. REALLY liked her. I didn’t realize it then, but I was not in any condition to be in a relationship. No way. I cried a lot over it, but frankly, it was best that I wasn’t. I couldn’t see it in 1997 and ’98, but now, I see it perfectly.

However, my crush on Rebecca continued, and it frankly irriated everyone I was around. Bill Franques tried to be as patient and understanding as he could, but had to jump my butt a few times. Herb got fed up with it. Michael Bonnette did too. They were right. I don’t know if I could handle a relationship today at 41. I know for sure I would have messed it up when I was 21.

Rebecca graduated cum laude in four years, while yours truly farted around and farted around. She got a job with Arthur Andersen, a prestigious accounting firm, in their New Orleans office, so she moved after graduation. Eventually, she lost her job there in 2002 after Arthur Andersen was implicated in the Enron scandal. She went to work at another big firm, Ernst & Young, before going to law school at Yale. More on that later.

Last time I saw her: May 13, 2001, at the LSU-Auburn baseball game, Skip Bertman’s final regular season game as coach. Our last phone conversation was in August 2002, when she called me after I had attempted to set up a date with somone I met on Match.com, but then said no a few minutes later. Our last e-mail communication was in December 2002, when I saw something she sent before I covered a high school football playoff game in Kentwood, the hometown of Britney Spears. In fact, I think I’d have a better chance of having Britney return a phone call/text/e-mail of mine than Rebecca these days.

Now back to the Yale Law School bit.

Dan told me in October 2004 that Rebecca was in New Haven attending Yale. I knew she had big dreams during her days at LSU, and it turns out she has fulfilled them.

In April 2014, I happened to read an article about her in an alumni magazine for St. Joseph’s Academy, the Baton Rouge all-girls Catholic high school where Brenda LeBlanc won so many state titles. Incidentally, Brenda’s first year at St. Joseph’s was the year after Rebecca graduted as valedictorian. Had Brenda been one year earlier, maybe I could have kept in touch through Brenda.

Rebecca is still living in Connecticut, married with (at least) two boys. I have done everything I can to contact her, but nothing. Dan has not helped me. I hate to bring it up with him, because I fear he won’t want to have anything to do with me if I do.

I feel terrible about the hurt I have caused the Borne family, especially Dan’s wife and Rebecca’s mother, Lisette. It doesn’t hurt as much now as it did when I lived in Louisiana, but I’d still like to know what happened. And why she hates me.

3. Tiffany Peperone

How we met: Tiffany was a cheerleader for Brother Martin who attended St. Mary’s Dominican High School. Her father, Vincent, graduated from one of Brother Martin’s antecedent schools, St. Aloysius, in 1964 (St. Aloysius and Cor Jesu merged in 1969 to form Brother Martin). Many young ladies who attended Dominican preferred to cheer for Jesuit, the all-boys Catholic school which has produced many Mayors of New Orleans (Moon Landrieu, Marc Morial and Mitch Landrieu are all former Blue Jays), but Tiffany always wanted to cheer for Brother Martin and she did for four years, something few did.

Tiffany was super sweet. She was a lot like Caitlyn Cox, except she didn’t play sports. Tiffany was extremely bright and intelligent. Graduated with honors from LSU and went to LSU law school. Was very highly thought of in LSU’s chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She also was a cheerleader for two years at LSU, but gave it up to concentrate on studies and the sorority.

I wanted to ask Tiffany to the Brother Martin homecoming dance when I was a senior and she was a sophomore at LSU. I knew LSU had an open date in football that weekend, and the plan was to go down to the field before LSU’s game vs. Utah State and ask her then. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the press pass Herb Vincent gave me for the game allowed me to go on the field prior to the game, and it never happened.

Last time I saw her: October 1, 1997, at Ivar’s Sports Bar in Baton Rouge. I was there with Bill Franques and Fred Demarest from the LSU athletic department. I have desperately tried contacting her in numerous ways recently, but nothing.

Honestly, I don’t know her marital status, anything. She has gone off the grid. Well, good for her if she has. I’d love to see her, but if she feels safer off the grid, I understand.

2. Janine (Jacques) Koenig

How we met: Janine was my eighth grade science teacher at Brother Martin High in New Orleans. In fact, she was the first teacher I encountered at Brother Martin. It also happened to be her first class at Brother Martin.

I gave Janine a very bad time during the 1989-90 school year. Her frustration with me boiled over one day in early May when she kicked me out of class. She had every right to. I was behaving very badly and although I couldn’t see the problem, it didn’t take me long to see where I was wrong.

Luckily for me, she didn’t hold 1989-90 against me during my next four years at Brother Martin. In fact, I often went to her when I needed help in science instead of asking the teacher who was instructing me that particular year. I trusted Janine.. A lot. Probably more than any teacher I have ever had at any level.

Last time I saw her: Decmeber 12, 1997 when I visited Brother Martin after finishing up the fall semester at LSU. I tried contacting her through Facebook, but nothing. Same when I wrote her in October 2016.

She left Brother Martin shortly after our visit. I don’t know where she is today. I know her son, Joshua, is almost 23. Hard to believe.

Janine is a highly intelligent lady. She was a four-year member of her quiz bowl team at St. Mary’s Dominican. She originally wanted to attend Duke, but settled for LSU.

There are a couple of other Brother Martin teachers I would give anything to see again: Rebecca Hale, who taught me English during the first semester of my junior year; and Eileen Depreo, who was my civics teacher as a senior.

Rebecca loves the Tulane Green Wave, but of coruse, I forgive her. She was simply incredible as the director of Brother Martin’s drama club, and I attended many of those productions. I found out late in my senior year that she was being fired, and I was crushed. At the last play of my senior year in May 1994, she found me outside the auditorium after a production and personally thanked me for attending. I’ll never forget that.

Eileen taught me a heck of a lot, and she was impressed with my knowledge, too. It was her guidnace which allowed me to score very highly on the American government advanced placement exam.

1. Renetta Rogers

How we met: Through Match.com. First date June 25, 1994. Went on a couple more dates in Louisiana before she moved with her parents to Arkansas, which came about nine months before Katrina hit and I moved to Kansas.

We reconnected once I got settled in Kansas, and visited her and her parents in Arkansas. The first time went wonderfully. A visit I had with her and her mother in St. Louis was not as good, but I won’t bore you with the details. When I went back to see her in Arkansas in August 2006, it all disintegrated.

Eventually, I got to see her in 2008, but that was it.

I loved Renetta very, very much. She is a 5-foot-10 beauty. I really, relaly cared for her. I would do anything to get her back in my life.

That’s it for now. I need to stop or I’m really going to lose it.