It was a rainy windswept summer afternoon in midtown Manhattan, from my office window I could see along 5^th Avenue, at one of mans marvels; the Empire State Building. However, on this day, it was shroud in fog and mist, giving it an eerie almost mystical glow. 

Standing at my desk speaking on the phone and gazing out the window at this wonder, when suddenly my cell phone rang, instinctively I reached into my pocket, clicked on the button, and within an instent I was transformed back in time, “Bobby, this is Ronnie” came the excited voice, for a moment my mind was blank, the voice was familiar and yet I had not heard it in over 30 years.

I quickly exclaimed “who”? The excited voice responded, “It’s your cousin Ronnie”!

Thirty years ago we parted, and for what ever reason we lost track of one another, as many families do. The war in Viet Nam, the Cultural Revolution, moving away from old neighborhoods, raising a family, and just living life, and while we both  tried to find one another, time and the years that past proved to be a daunting task, until that summer day in August, when my cell phone rang, and a lost cousin was found. 

You see Ronnie never truly gave up trying to find me, and for years he would call names in phone books, only to be disappointed, years passed until technology and of course the internet became the  new frontier.

And so on that August afternoon, as he had done so many times in the past, in his office somewhere in the Pennsylvania, he again asked his IT Manager to do him “a favor” and log on to the internet and type once again my name, however this time  within seconds two lost cousins were reunited.

The photo above was taken at the world famous “Carmines” at 46^th Street in the heart if Times Square. From left to right, Uncle Frank, my cousin Ronnie and…