"Missing Persons"

A few days ago I was talking with my brother and he told me he had contacted his old college alma mater and asked the whereabouts of three of his friends from those days. They sent him the address for one, another they had no address for, and the third had died last year. Well I guess one out of three isn't bad. Anyway it got me thinking about some of my college friends and if I would like to locate them now. I only came up with one that I would really like to locate. All the rest of my college crowd, I know where they are.

When I started my freshman year at Erskine College one of the first people I met upon my arrival was Murch Alexander. He was from Greenwood, South Carolina and he was like an alien from another planet as far as I was concerned. That is because he was "preppy" (do they still use that term?).

Murch looked to me like someone from New England should and would look. He wore Oxford cloth shirts, khaki pants, blue over the calf socks and saddle oxford shoes. He wore his hair cropped close to his head, and on some days he smoked a pipe. He reeked of refinement and old money.

I had come to Erskine from Clinton, South Carolina where we wore mostly jeans, madras shirts and no socks. We thought we were pretty cool but we didn't stand a chance against someone like Murch. We acted our roles in life while his just came naturally.

Once I met him I wanted to be friends with him, and we did become friends. I also started saving up for some oxford cloth shirts. Murch was the kind of person who drifted through that first year of college without breaking a sweat. He got good grades and he made a lot of friends. After our first month there he was elected Class President and I was elected Vice President. Some of his charisma had obviously rubbed off on me.

All during that year Murch talked about going to the University of South Carolina. That is the school he had originally wanted to attend but his folks had wanted him to come to Erskine for one year. He did his duty and served his time, and after that one year he was gone. I never saw him again.

During the years since I graduated from Erskine I have looked at the newspapers in South Carolina to see if I could find some news of him. I figured he would have to be a State Senator or at least a Representative by now. But no luck. He is nowhere to be found.

So if anyone out there reading this knows the whereabouts of Hugh Murchison Alexander, once from Greenwood, South Carolina, let me know. I would truly like to know what happened to him and how his life has been. He is the one person from my college days that I would like to find. He was only in my class for that one freshman year but he made an impression.
 

 

 

 

 

©2007 Jackie K. Cooper

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