He had dark, leathery, wine-colored skin and big, gentle hands. I had never seen anyone like him.

I was 3, and he was sitting quietly at a table at a big Sioux pottery market with a pottery wheel, working away. To me, he was the most interesting attraction in the place, so I went right over to him to find out what he was doing.

He welcomed me, my eyes barely level with his table, and took time from his work to answer all of my questions.

He said his name was Leonard Little Thunder, and I thought, "How wonderful." I wished my parents had been so creative in naming me.

I've wondered about Leonard Little Thunder throughout my life -- his name, his face, the whole feeling of meeting him. He, a formidable man with decades of life under his belt, and me, just beginning to form memories, acquiring him as one of my first.

It remains one of my happiest — a cherished memory with a bittersweet, 21st century ending.

___

Although he wore glasses, Leonard Little Thunder never looked through them while he spoke to me, but tilted his head down so our eyes could meet. Leonard looked so big, but his kindness eased any fear I may have had as a little girl talking to a stranger. I felt like I stood with him for hours.

He taught me about his work, pointing out different ways of painting pieces of pottery, how he went about choosing colors, and the way different colors can enhance and bring out other colors. I still remember vivid shades of blue from that day that I have yet to see again.

When my parents found me, I said good-bye to Leonard and thought, with the resolve of a 3-year-old, that I would see him again soon, since we had become friends.

He gave me a bell he'd made and signed it with his name. I still have it, though I've wondered at times if our interaction was real or some figment of my childhood imagination.

I've wanted to ask him this, and if he was still around, and where he might be, and if he was still creating pottery and painting with those dazzling blues, and if by chance he remembered me, too.

And so, like anybody who wants to look up an old acquaintance in this odd era where you no longer have to depend on coincidence to swipe a glance at a memory, I Googled him.

___

"Leonard Little Thunder." The first hit took me right to the Sioux Pottery website, the same market where I had met Leonard in 1979. On the artists' page, there were photos and a paragraph about each artist, Leonard's first.

I learned he was Sicangu, and born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in 1947. A Marine and Vietnam veteran, he spent his life painting and making pottery with the same kind of attention and gentle touch he had used in making that bell for me, signing his name to each of his pieces.

I scrolled down through the paragraph, learning more about the kind of art he made and where he gathered inspiration. I enjoyed reading about Leonard from an adult's perspective, and as I continued, I began to wonder if there would be a way for me to go and visit him again.

I was already envisioning our reunion: sitting at his table as he worked, smiling at him as I told him who I was and all I remembered from nearly 30 years past.

But my heart dropped when I got to the final line. "Unfortunately, Leonard passed away August 20, 2005," it said. "He is greatly missed by all of us."

How strange to take Leonard from the hazy realms of my memory to the bright computer screen of my iBook — to know not only that he was in fact a real person, but that he, too, had landed on the Internet.

And that now, he is gone.

Some strangers become part of us for a lifetime; some simply vanish. I found the trace of Leonard Little Thunder in the connections of the Internet. But no computer image can replace the vivid one in my mind.

___

asap contributor Suzanne Ohlmann is a writer and musician.

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