Over the past few years I’ve developed a bit of a fascination about whatever became of some of the guys I went to high school with. (I went to an all boys Catholic school)

From time to time I do a Google search on the names of random people from my Year 12 class. Sometimes I get results, sometimes I get nothing. It does not always lead to me contacting people, but sometimes it’s just interesting to know where a former classmate might be living /working, what bands they’ ve been in or if they’ve been quoted in a newspaper.

One guy I’ve tried to track down for a while was Jakob Matovinovic. Jakob and I were friends back in high school. He was a hardcore Croatian kid who was responsible in me becoming proficient enough in Croatian swear words that I’ve managed to impress a number of people of Croatian stock. Jakob lived quite close to the school and one of the things that he was best known for was how his father would come and fish for carp in the lake at the far end of the school grounds.

After we finished high school in1992 we lost touch as is often the case with high school buddies. I’d heard rumours that Jakob had gone into the military. That he’d moved to Croatia. Who knew what to believe?

A couple of weeks ago I did another search and finally got a result. He had recently shot an email off to our old high school and news of his whereabouts were published in the “where are they now?” section of our former school’s newsletter. The newsletter’s text made it onto a Google search:

Hello from Croatia
Jakob Matovinovic (1992) recently contacted Parade from his home town of
Susine-Durdenovac, Croatia. After leaving Parade, he worked with US Army Contracting Command Europe (on the NATO Stabilisation Force Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina) and then for Kellogg Brown & Root in Iraq during the war. After returning home, he was elected to Council and is currently Mayor. Jakob is married to Silvija and has a son Kresimir (Chris) and a daughter Viktorija (Victoria) – named after the best state in the Southern Hemisphere! Another baby Matovinovic is on the way. Good wishes to Jakob and his family from the Parade community.

Jakob? Mayor? Naaahh.

Knowing where Jakob was living, I did a bit more digging, and managed to find a page (in Croatian) listing not only his name but a number. Since the page was in Croatian I had no idea if it was his or not. But I thought – what the hell – and tried my luck.

It was Jakob alright. Understandably he was quite surprised to hear from me. After all it had been a good 14 years since we’d spoken and we were now living half a world away from Australia. But over the next 20 minutes or so we had quite a good catch-up, head a few laughs and shared a few memories.. The irony is that when I called him, he was fishing in a lake in near his home in Croatia. Like father, like son. I had to laugh.

Yes, he’d been involved in the military. Yes, he’d moved to Croatia. And YES, he was the Mayor of his town. Back in 1992 a bookie would have given you a million to one to anyone picking that particular trifecta. It’s funny how life turns out.

We’ve made tentative plans to catch up whenever Olivia and I make it over to Croatia. Croatia was already on our list of places to go, but it has definitely been bumped up a few notches now.

Quite a pleasant experience really. Next mission: Flavio Ciano.