It's A Small World After All

[crokett]

This week at the beach my 4yr old made friends with another little girl. Her dad looked vaguely familiar (I have a good memory for faces but a terrible one for names). It turned out that I worked with his dad some years ago. I don't think I would have made a connection except for the son had a beard cut the same way his dad wears one. His family was there for a family reunion and ironically enough he had grown the beard just so he could play his dad in a skit.

We stopped at the aquarium today and I ran into another guy from work who was there with his granddaughter.

[Richard in Smithville]

Back in 79, I went to England to visit with family. While hanging out at a park by my uncles, I met up with a couple of guys who lived a few blocks from my house. Small world.

[rcp612]

I had a customer come in the other day and, when I asked how to make out the invoice I said, hey, I grew up with a guy with the same name. He replied, " that's my Grandpa."
Scary how fast everyone else ages.

[jackellis]

Ten or 15 years ago, my wife and I were sightseeing somewhere on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska when I saw someone who looked very familiar. Turned out he worked for a client of mine at one time in San Diego. He was in Alaska on vacation with his family.

Some years before, my wife and I were cross country skiing up at Lake Tahoe when we had to step aside for some other folks coming in the opposite direction. I knew one of the folks because he worked for the utility in Reno I did some business with. LOML had lived in the same residence hall at Duke with his sister, who she recognized after more than 30 years.

[pelligrini]

A few years ago my wife and I went to Amsterdam with another couple. While we were in a smart shop so they could pick out some mushrooms and we met a kid playing on a computer. It turned out that he lived just around the block from the other couple.

[Tom Slick]

When I was in the USAF I answered the phone one day:
"F110 section, this is Senior Airman XXXX"
"Senior Airman XXXX?" with some hesitation
"Yes sir"
"This is Technical Sergeant XXXX" (same odd last name)
"We must be related"
He is my grandpa's cousin's grandson. My Dad has met his dad.
We were both jet engine mechanics, and had worked with some of the same people in the USAF.

Same shop, I mention to a civilian coworker that I am going to a cousin's wedding. He says "I grew up there" and I say "so did my parents." He knew my grandfather and my dad went to school with this guy's sister.

[Pappy]

When I moved here in '90 the house next door to me was a rental. After the owner divoreced, it was sold to a woman from Wichita Falls for her son and his family to live in. He and I were in band together in Jr. High.

[leehljp]

Almost too many to write about . . . but here goes:
I have meet numerous people that I have known in Airports bound for Memphis on the same flight that I was on. But that is not too unusual.

The more unusual ones are:
1. In 1989, we were home on our first furlough from Japan, staying in Memphis. The Southern Baptist Convention was held in Las Vegas that year (June) and we attended (drove). Prior planning enabled us to spend a month driving and showing our kids some of America. Before the convention, we visited the Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Zion, and Bryce's Canyon. After the convention we traveled to Death Valley, Yosemite, Red Wood Forrest, up to Oregon and Washington over to Yellowstone, Bad Lands and Mt Rushmore.

As we pulled into Portland Oregon, we stopped at a Wendy's. I went first with our 3 daughters aged 15, 11 and 5, and LOML keeping them in line. Oldest daughter April (very nonchalantly) said to the young lady taking our order: "Hi Deena." Deena says "Hi April." I look and said to both - "You know each other?" April said "Deena is in the class ahead of me at school in Japan - the American School in Japan (ASIJ). Deena says "I am just home for the summer."

2. At the end of the month, we are driving across the pan handle of Texas and pull into a gas station in Amarillo. A man pulls up behind me and says "I am from Colorado Springs but I saw your county tag in MS. I used to live there. Do you know a man by the name of Henry Lee?" Me - "That is my dad."


3. In 1994, I went to Singapore for a week. I am taken around by a family that had attended our church in Japan for several months. He takes me to a birthday party for his pastor, a Chinese fellow. I look and look at him and he looks at me. I said, "Did you study in the States?"
He replies "In 1978 - 79 I was at SouthWestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft Worth, Texas. I replied I was there as a student at the same time!


4. In the spring of 1992, I met a Japanese man in Conway, Arkansas and we talked for several hours. In the fall of 1993, I was shopping with a friend in Kobe and this Japanese man comes up and starts talking to me in English. I was puzzled until he said he was the man that I met in Conway. I had forgotten his face and his name, but I had not forgot the conversation.


5. In 1991, our family traveled to Guam for a vacation (frequent flyer miles). I tried wind surfing but fell off more than I stayed on. LOML and daughters are having laughing fits watching me. A Japanese lady and her daughter are doing the same. In between laughing fits, LOML strikes up a conversation. The lady was from Southern Japan. Linda told her that we lived in Fuchu, Tokyo. She says: My brother pastors a church in Chofu, Tokyo. Linda asks which church? She says Chofu Baptist. Linda says: That is where we attend! We knew her brother. He was my mentor and helped me with Japanese ministerial language. We met her again a few weeks later when she traveled to Tokyo for her niece's wedding.

[dlminehart]

I read a similar discussion on my college class's forum. One classmate's son and the son's best friend throughout college shared an interest in mountain climbing. Since they came from different parts of the country, they arranged to rendezvous at the son's friend's mom's house in Colorado before tackling the Rockies. While there, they discovered that the mom had been my classmate's lover for years before they went their separate ways to their ultimate life partners.