Cast No Stones by Kevin Machell

Author:Kevin Machell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2011-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 16 – The Search Begins

I telephoned my mother and informed her of my decision to search for my father. She was excited at the prospect of me finding him. Over the next two or three weeks she would telephone me often and tell me about all the times they spent together and the places they went. She was hoping that in reminiscing about certain aspects it might give me some clues and therefore help in my search. It was almost like she was re-living some of those days.

My search began in earnest in late 1986. Thanks to my mother, I now had a name and his address, albeit from forty years ago. Where was I to start? Searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack sounded an impossible task. But was it really as difficult as it seemed? With the available technology it should be fairly straightforward. The ability to store data and to quickly assimilate information from database to database takes only seconds. The information I was searching for was out there already - probably sitting on some computer somewhere. A carefully planned strategy was needed. With patience and determination, my metaphoric needle should be located. My initial problem was in not knowing where to start. Also, I didn’t really have enough information. The task of getting computers to assimilate information is one thing; providing adequate information for the computers to do their work is something else.

Geographically, the USA is thirty times bigger than the UK and has a population of over three hundred million people, which equals five times as many people as the UK. The state of Indiana alone has a population of over six million. The town of Gary itself has a population of over one hundred thousand people. I decided that I needed a strategy. I needed to seek advice on the matter. I needed some professional guidance. I had very little information to go on. I had a name, an approximate age, a town and a state. All of which could be forty years out of date. To make matters worse, I didn’t even know if he was still alive.

I began to think about the implications of my search in a little more detail. I had a remote possibility of being able to find him, but did I really have any right to? Was he a happily married family man with grown-up children and grandchildren? Did I have the right to intrude into this scenario? Even though I had always determined that he and he alone would have the final say with regard to contact, I would still need to intrude in the first instance. Does he ever think about me? I asked myself. Does he care? Was I just an accident of war? Have the wounds healed and scarred over to the extent that he has long since forgotten about me?

Another thought began to enter my mind. Was my mother telling me the truth? Was she still trying to

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