I recently had one of those encounters.

It was March or April when I first noticed a Sunnyvale email about a teacher retiring and plans for a huge celebration. I forwarded the email to my personal email box, intending to get back to it later.

With the school year coming to a close, I decided to check the retiring teacher story out. I sent off a message to someone named Penny asking how long the teacher has been teaching, what does he teach and are there students or their parents we could call about him.

By return email Penny tells me the teacher is named Gordon Murphy and he has inspired musicians all over the world and that he is teaching at ASL.

The part about the musicians all over the world grabs my interest. But I don't know which Sunnyvale school ASL is. I lean over and ask, Pallavi, our Sunnyvale reporter. She shrugs her shoulders and says maybe it's American Sign Language school. I start to quiver a little at the idea of a story about an inspiring music teacher at a school for the deaf.

So I email Penny, asking which Sunnyvale school ASL is.

She says ASL is the American School in London. The air goes right out of my what-a-great-story balloon. The Sun is supposed to be fiercely local, and London is a bit far from town. I thank her and figure that's the end of the story.

Then some guy named Patrick emails, telling me my message had been forwarded to him because he is the one who handles press queries. He asks me, "Could you tell me a bit more about your interest in Gordon?"

I quickly lay out the sequence of events for him and thank him for his response and tell him the story wouldn't work for our "fiercely" local paper. But I also write that I'm happy for Mr. Murphy and I hoped they have a wonderful celebration.

Patrick thanks me and I think that is the end of it.

Penny writes back. It seems Patrick had forwarded her my explanation and she thinks it was funny.

I tell her I didn't understand why I got the email about Murphy in the first place but yes it was funny.

Then comes a message from Gordon Murphy himself. He says he thinks the whole idea of our doing a story about him was a bit strange, but that he'd attended San José State University and did teach at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale for seven years. He says they were still the Indians back then. He's been away from Sunnyvale since 1975 and is astounded that anyone would remember him. "It's a funny old world," he writes.

I tell him someone here must have remembered him and that's probably why I got the message about his retirement.

Penny emails that people from Sunnyvale are writing messages to her about Gordon. The group organizing the celebration had asked for reminiscences via emails to former students.

"Ok, now it's becoming clear," I answer, thinking one of the reminiscees sent the original email. But I figure that's the end of it.

Murphy writes back that he is originally from Mississippi. He'd grown up in the military and traveled a lot. His father had retired in California. He says he is also a graduate of Fremont High, Class of 1963. In 1975 he went to Europe. He says he still hears from old students via the internet. He names a few students from SJSU that might remember him.

I write back that my father had been in the military and been stationed in England for three years and I had fond memories of the country there and were his old students in the music department at state.

"Yep," he says, "they were in the music department."

I don't send a return message because his message is short, like he's busy. I'm too busy myself to continue.

Then comes a phone call from Amy Bayandorian. Amy says she's sorry to bother me but she wanted to tell me about her former band teacher Gordon Murphy who was retiring.

"There are so many people here who would remember him. "Murph," she says, is one of those teachers who changes your life." She's even getting choked up on the other end of the phone talking about him.

Amy says she was a student at Fremont back in the 1970s. She goes on about how patient and kind Murphy had been helping her learn to play an instrument. She says he spent hours helping his students and they loved him.

She laughs and says one time his students actually picked up his little sports car and put it outside the principal's office. "Gordon is the kind of teacher who takes a thing like that in stride," she says.

She gets a little flustered and says she's not articulate enough and that I should email Murphy's wife Nathalie.

What the heck I think and send an email to Nathalie with a few questions, figuring she can simply answer quickly by a return email. Maybe there's a story here.

The next day I answer the phone, and a woman says she's Nathalie.

"I thought it would be easier to call you up," she says.

"Are you calling from London?" I ask.

"Yes," she says.

She tells me about Murphy.

It seems he and his first wife, an opera singer, were classmates at Fremont High. They moved to London so she could study music. He'd found a part-time, temporary job at ASL He and his wife eventually divorced, and he'd come back to SJSU to get his masters in music composition.

He and Nathalie had met in an opera survey class at SJSU.

Nathalie had been one of his students at Fremont High, class of 1969. "There was nothing going on between us then." She says.

The two married and moved to Mississippi and lived on a farm. He'd gotten a call from ASL offering him another temporary position and that was August of 1984. "Nineteen years later," she says, "and we are still here."

She says way back when Murph was in Sunnyvale he played with the Garcia Brothers, a local band. He played the Sax. She says at ASL Murph has taught the children of some very famous music people, like the son of Stewart Copeland, and one of Murph's students won a Grammy.

She sends me recent pictures of Murph standing with Colin Powell and Tony Blair. I can see from the pictures that Murph is a big man with a full beard.

She said the celebration for "Murph" is June 8 and that one of his former Fremont students, Steve Adams, who now lives in Paris, will be coming and that they have been getting emails from former students. She says Murph doesn't know about the big bash.

She says after Murph retires, they are moving back to Mississippi, somewhere south of Hattiesburg, to the farm. "He's going to build a geodesic dome," she says. "Murph met Buckminster Fuller once and always wanted to build one." (Fuller is man who invented the geodesic dome) She says beyond that they don't have definite plans.

So maybe some of you here in Sunnyvale do remember Murph. It's been quite a little email journey for me. I feel like I may have missed something in not knowing him.

And if I go to Mississippi, somewhere south of Hattiesburg, I might just look up Murph and say hello.

To connect with Murph send an email to Gordontribute@aol.com.

Sandy Sims is the editor of The Sun. Contact her at 408.200.1055 or via email, ssims@svcn.com.