I had a penfriend who lived in Australia when I was a teenager. We got to be great friends and wrote for about four years regularly before life started getting complicated and ending it. In that time we met up once when she came over to New Zealand and we hung out together for a few weeks.
Ten years later I moved to Australia and her home town, and found a place to live. I wanted to meet up with her again, but her name was not in the phone book. Okay, I figured, she’s likely moved away, or got married, or something. I deperately tried to remember her boyfriend’s name to see if it was under that one, but couldn’t recall it.
One day, I went to my regular train station and saw someone I recognised talking to the newspaper dude. It was her.
She lived not five blocks from me.
Since then we have caught up numerous times. Very cool.
I once read a book by a NZ author that I really seriously enjoyed. After reading it I said to myself, for the first time for any book, “If I ever meet the author, I’m going to go straight up to her and tell her how much I enjoyed this book.”
One year later, there she was at a lecture. So I did.
A few weeks ago, KKBattousai and I attended his family’s reunion luncheon here in Washington. I sat next to his aunt and uncle. We made the usual small talk: when did you folks arrive here, how do you like it so far, etc.
It turns out that his aunt and I are from the same area in Hawaii; she even knows someone who lives in my neighborhood. Also, their daughter lives in Olympia, two doors down from my own aunt and uncle. Apparently, they’re the only Asian families in the neighborhood, so they know each other.
It made for quite the “you’re not going to believe who I just met” conversation when I called my aunt and uncle later that week.
I posted this one a few months back, but I always like telling the story:
I was reading a book in an airport, and the author killed off one of my favorite characters from an earlier novel. The combination of a non-smoking airport, a flight delay, and not nearly enough sleep the night before slammed into this senseless killing, and the terminal was pretty much empty, so I tossed the book away.
Just then, some guy came walking around the corner, and the book bounced into his ankle. He picked it up and handed it back to me, then said, “Wow. I haven’t had one of my own books thrown at me in years.”
Recovering quickly, I explained to him that had I known he was there, I’d have sworn at him first for killing off the character. He laughed and signed the book, we chatted for a while and went our separate ways.
Two years later, I strike up a relationship with a woman I’d met a few times before. A year after that, I get married. A year after that, my wife is going through my books, sees that one and says, “Oh, he’s one of my favorite authors. I once ran into him at an airport and got my copy of this signed, and he said some guy had just thrown it at him because he killed off his favorite character.”
She then reads the inscription: Sorry I killed him. Please don’t throw anything else at me.
I have a similar story (though nowhere near as amazing). I met Mr. S when we both worked at a small printing company. We worked in the same room with a few other people. One day one of these other people was trying to illustrate some idea or other of his with a drawing. As he drew one of the objects, I commented (mostly to myself), “That looks like a pea-pin!” (The future) Mr. S overheard me and said, “The Pushcart War, right?”
I was astounded. The Pushcart War (by Jean Merrill) was a children’s book I’d read as a kid in the 1970s (this was 1988). It’s about a fictional “war” between the nice pushcart vendors and the evil trucks in NYC; “pea-pins” were one of the pushcart vendors’ weapons, shot from peashooters at the trucks’ tires to disable them. The book was given to me in a box of hand-me-down books from my older cousins. I’d never run across anyone else who’d ever read it. Neither had Mr. S. It was one of the things that led us to believe that maybe we should get to know each other better – the idea that we not only were obviously both voracious, eclectic readers, but even could remember such minutiae.
After we were married, we wrote up a letter to Ms. Merrill (who was in her 70s at the time), telling her about how we both still enjoyed her book and how it played a part in our life together, and sent it off with our copy of the book and a request for her autograph. She returned it with a lovely, humorous inscription and a two-page letter that not only was utterly charming, but also explained the origins of several phrases from the book. We had the letter framed, and it’s on display with the inscribed book in our living room.
Well, while stankow wins the big prize I have a couple.
My sister and I have the same birthday, nine years apart.
My parents and I went on a trip to Colorado. We rented a Jeep in Ouray and drove around. We ran into my parents best friends in Yankee Boy Basin. I remeber saying “I didn’t know we were going to meet Dick and Jeanie here”. My Dad responded with “Huh?”. I pointed to Dick and Jeanie sitting on the back of a Jeep. The strange thing was that both of the trips were planned at the last minute.
I moved to Florida with my band. I had just moved down there and went to see King Diamond in concert. I got in line and then felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and Dave, a guy I had in my english class 3 weeks before in New Mexico, was standing next to me.
When I went to the prom, as a freshman (with a sophomore as a date), it turned out my date was born the same DAY I was.
My downstairs neighbor at my apartment building when I was in college was from the same VERY small town in Ohio that I was * - of course I had left there 15 years earlier, and didn’t know her then, but still - kind of weird.
This is more of a family thing, and not specific to me, but—my mother’s grandfather served in the Confederate Army. His mustering out papers were signed by an officer who bore the same last name as the man my mother married—my last name, too, of course. Neither of the names in question are all that common.
My mother and my ex-wife’s mother are both named Marie.
My brother’s wife’s mother’s name was Marie.
The lady I am seeing now has the middle name of Marie - and her mother’s name is Marie.
Both of my grandmothers were named Helen.
Both of THEIR mothers were named Caroline.
My first roommate in college turned out to be my third cousin - I never even knew of his existance prior.
In early 2000, The bishop of my LDS ward in California had a twin brother. After moving back east, I went to church with my then-girlfriend that summer. The bishop of her ward was the twin brother.
I’m originally from California, but have lived in Wisconsin now for 25 years. To really appreciate this coincidence, you need to know how conversations go at bars in northern Wisconsin. It’s something like this: Ya know Art, well him and his buddy got a cabin on Lake Pickerel. Yeah? isn’t he Bill’s second cousin? Y’ know, him and a couple three of his buddies hunt north a Eagle. Yeah, his brother-in-law went to school with my wife’s sister. They gotta used truck offa Charlie. He still work for Stan? It goes on like this for hours.
About 1990, I’m on a work trip with three men from my office (State of Wisconsin environmental regulators), staying overnight in Rhinelander. We’re hanging out in the local bar, drinking beer, and they are swapping up-north conversation (see above) with the bartender and locals. After a couple hours, I’m feeling a little left out and not nearly tipsy enough to make up stories, so I ask can’t we PUHLEEZE change the subject and maybe talk about fishing or the Packers or anything but who’s related to whom. They suggest, not too politely, that I go play “it’s a small world” with Mike, because, after all, Mike used to live in California, and we are just bound to know somebody in common.
So, very VERY sarcastically, I turn to Mike, who works just four cubicles away from me, and has worked there for 10 years. I turn to Mike and I say, “Hi, I’m as_u_wish, maiden name S., I grew up in San Mateo, California, Hillsdale High School, class of '69.” And all the blood drains from his face, as he stammers, “Hi, I’m Mike L., Hillsdale High School, San Mateo, California, class of '70.”
Yeah, right. A set up, you think? It took several names (including those of my younger brothers and a listing of all eight Buechenstien kids) before I believed him. We ended very tipsy singing the Hillsdale Highschool Fight song, much to the irritation of the locals. We had worked together for 10 years, four cubicles away from each other. Totally clueless. The normal state for government workers.
In Disneyworld with my 8 year old daughter, during the big parade, we hear someone call her name. It’s her best friend. Neither of the two kids or the two moms knew about the others’ vacation.
It was rather unpleasant…in the last apartment complex I lived in there was this guy who was ALWAYS panhandling-‘do you have a quarter you can spare?’-‘ten dollars?’-‘can i use your phone?’-‘will you drive me to…’ and he was always littering the front of my building with himself, and I remember how tired of it I was! One day after work I decided to go to a really popular place in Dallas called the West End (Dallas TX) to have some fun (where thousands of people go to dance, drink, play games, eat at great restaurants, etc.) and just not go back to my apartment until late, after he had gone back to his parents,’ or wherever it was he lived. The ONE person I did not need to see and did not want to see was him. I got out of the car after paying my money into the box and walked to the West End Marketplace, thinking about this all the way over there. In a crowd of over 800 people, while I was walking toward the building, there he was, and he spotted me instantly, walked toward me and told me that a friend had driven him over there and left him and now he needed cab fare home. I told him all I had was two dollars, and to me his story sounded suspicious. He had never been violent or ballistic but just persistent and this was no exception. I think maybe a demon or some kind of a negative odds force was at work but I’ll never forget this. It just sucked!
Another kind of scary one was one that happened at my Grandmother’s house when I was somewhere in my mid-teens. It was when I was in her guest house reading a horror book. I had been told by my father and stepmother to shower and clean up to get ready to be taken to a very nice restaurant, and that we’d leave around 2:30. I’d read some of my story and then start getting ready. I was reading and came to one part of a page in the book describing a situation one of the characters was enduring and said “it was 2:00.” I jumped off the bed and started rushing around, into the shower and a new change of clothes and nearly ran back into the main house, glad to have made it in time. Then I thought about it. looked at my watch, and it was 2:20, 20 minutes in mind at that time being the exact amount of time it must have taken me to prepare as instructed. I felt a chill.
Over beers, I was talking about the three women I would have wanted to marry, given the chance. Although all were from the same large city, none of the three women knew each other. My drinking buddy knew all three.
I’m at work one day and I approach a customer who is squatting down, looking at some items. She asks a few questions, and I start writing up her order while she stands up and turns towards me. I haven’t seen her face yet…just her long, strawberry-blonde hair, but she’s got this great voice. She’s dictating what she wants inscribed on her order and I’m scribbling away, but at the back of my mind I’m thinking, “this is a really cool person”…great voice, nice friendly way about her…but I still haven’t gotten a good look at her.
She then tells me her nephew’s name that she wants on the item and starts to spell it to me because it’s an unusual last name…but I say, “oh, I know how to spell that”, and write it down before she finishes…and she says, “how do you know that, nobody ever spells it right!?” And I say, “I used to live next door to a family with that name” and then I hear her shocked voice say, "You used to live next door to me???
I then look up at her and realize who she is…one of my dearest girlfriends from my childhood. We last saw each other when she played the piano at my wedding twenty years before. I’d moved out of state and the cards and letters had petered out after a few years. We hugged and cried and got all caught up, and we’ve gone to a few funerals together since…an unlucky time with all of our old neighborhood friends’ parents were dying…but what sticks with me is that feeling that I had before I really saw her, that this was someone I’d really like to know, someone really funny and sweet. I didn’t think “hey, she seems familiar”, just got this great vibe that I’ve never gotten from anyone before.
Some years ago a girlfriend and I went to Paris for a week in January–her dad was working there so we’d have a free place to stay. After her dad picked us up at the airport,he suggested we stop in a cafe for a bite before going to their apartment. So in we go. It’s my first stop anywhere in Paris, one of a thousand little cafes. And I immediately see someone I know from North Carolina. Oddly, later on that trip, at Versailles, I ran into someone else from North Carolina that I knew (I didn’t even live in North Carolina).
I dated a guy in Virginia who dumped me. A few years later I went to grad school here in Michigan. On a daytrip to Chicago I looked behind me on the escalator at Marshall Fields and there was that guy. Turned out he now lived in Chicago and just happened to be in that store on his lunch break. I traveled to Chicago to see him a few more times after that.
I had a few odd coincidences with grad school, running into people that I knew from elsewhere in the country, but maybe that’s not so odd because this place is a magnet for people.
I do have a set of friends named Peter and Susan and through them, I’ve had six degrees of separation illustrated in shocking ways various times. Too complicated to explain some of them, but things like my running into a guy that Susan was in Italy with on a multi-college exchange. And at Susan’s wedding in Virginia, I ran into a girl who worked with the groom in North Carolina, with whom I had been in grade school in Nebraska. She had moved away in 5th grade and I hadn’t heard a thing about her since. Incidentally, I was with Susan in Paris when those other things happened.
The nurse who prepped my sister to have an MRI after she was hit by a car turned out to be the cousin of the driver of the car that hit her. The nurse didn’t realize until the next day, when the accident was reported in the paper.
When I was in 9th grade, our band took a spring break trip to Florida - played at DisneyWorld, the wohle nine yards. I get back from Florida, and go to see my best friend in the neighborhood (who went to a different school). He says, ‘Boy, do I have a surprise for you’ and whips out a photo of ME in the parade at DisneyWorld that he had taken - I didn’t know he was going to Florida, and he didn’t know our band was going to be there that day (we didn’t even realize that our two schols had spring break the same time).
I have a good friend from college (East Carolina University) who kind of dropped off the face of the earth - rumor had it that she had died of a heroin overdose in NYC in the early 90’s. Nope - she now lives about 20 miles from me here in Washington State.