What the Hell Happened

The day after I graduated from the University of Iowa in 1992, my wife Eliza checked out a VHS camera from public access and we interviewed a handful of friends as a sort of time capsule, thinking it would be interesting to see how their lives turned out sometime downstream. It was a random sampling of Iowa college kids - people we knew, people still there in January 1992, people willing to participate, and people who actually showed up for the 3 days we had the camera. The tapes were chucked into a box and survived many moves; from Iowa City to Philadelphia, to Seattle, then Los Angeles in 2019 where I got them digitized. Just seeing all my old friends again made me want to reach out. Some I had stayed in touch with, others I hadn't seen the entire time and had to track down. In 2021, I had a break in my freelance schedule so I went around the country to interview everyone and find out what the hell happened. Here are the thoughts, hopes, dreams, disappointments, successes, failures, mistakes, victories, losses and great loves of me and 5 of my friends over 32 years.