The summer between my junior and senior year at college I took some courses at a different college. I went to college at New College in Sarasota, Florida. The college I did the summer term at was the University of Michigan. Not long after I returned to New College for my senior year, another student came up to me and asked, “Wendell, were you in Ann Arbor, Michigan this summer?” It seemed that during the summer he decided to travel by bus from his home somewhere in northern Florida to his girlfriend’s home somewhere in northern (but not the Upper Peninsula) Michigan. He happened to look out of the bus as it passed through Ann Arbor and saw me walking along the street.
I’m a fan of the Who. First time I saw them in concert, the song on the radio when I got in the car was Amazing Journey by the Who. Since then I’ve never heard that song on the radio again.
My freshman year at university, I got a locker at the library, and they supplied the lock. It was an easy (for me) combination to remember – 16-22-12. This was in 1983; I graduated in 1987. There was no electronic databases or anything; they wrote me down on a list when I first got it, and crossed me off when I returned it.
2007, I get a job as a ass’t professor at the same university, and wonder if they still have lockers and that, especially as the place has been extensively remodelled and redecorated since then. Yep, they sure do, and they still supply the locks. The one they gave me had the combination 16-22-12.
Before my wife and I were married, the first Thanksgiving we spent together, we visited a friend of hers who’s a bit of a hippy granola crunchy friend, and one evening while we were all visiting and drinking, said friend brought out a “do-it-yourself” tarot deck with a book explaining how to use it. The deck had 50-some cards in it.
We decided we were going to draw three cards to represent our past, present, and future. After drawing each card, the book had an explanation, and then we talked about what it meant personally. Sort of a “get to the deep stuff” conversation prompt. My wife went first, drawing three cards, and talking about them in turn.
I went next. I shuffled and cut the deck, and the first card I drew was the first card she drew, and we joked about it a bit, and I talked about it. I set it aside, shuffled and cut the deck, and drew my second card. It was the same as the second card she drew. We laughed about it, and her friend accused me of sleight of hand.
For the final card, after shuffling and cutting, I made a big show of pulling the top card off the deck as though I were going to pick it, but then put it on the bottom instead, and picked the next card, which was a different one than my (now) wife had chosen. After we had discussed my third pick, I flipped over the deck, revealing the bottom card to be my (now) wife’s third card.
If I saw this happen to anyone else, I’d be sure that it was stage magic. But I’m no magician (and neither are they), and no one but me handled the deck the whole time I was picking cards from it.
Back in college, 1990 or so, I was getting a ride home with a friend for Fall Break, travelling from Dallas to St. Louis. We stopped off at some random McDonald’s somewhere in Oklahoma. I’m standing in line, looking around…the guy in front of me orders and I pause when I hear the voice and look at him…it’s my Dad.
Dad was heading to from KC to Houston with a colleague for business. Neither of us had any awareness of the others’ travel plans.
To meet in the same line like that…leaving from different departure cities…leaving at different departure times…driving in exact opposite directions…plus the huge number of places to stop for food…I mean, the odds are incalculable.
When I entered graduate school at the University of Maryland, I was looking to get involved with a RPG group, found one and eventually became good friends with the DM, Steve. One day when I was at his apartment I noticed that the had some pictures of the balloon fiesta on his wall I mentioned that I was from New Mexico; Los Alamos specifically. It turns out that he went to high school there, but since he was 6 years older than me we didn’t overlap. However further investigation revealed that his younger brother was my older brother’s best friend. I remember being jealous when my brother went over to play Champions with Steve as GM. If he had invited me to join him I could have met Steve 12 years earlier.
I was about to play the album Mobile Estates by Citizen King in the car and put the CD in and turned on the radio and their song “Better Days” came on immediately. I did a double-take but it was the second track on the album, not the first, so I was only fooled for a second or two.
These stories are great and I love each and every one of them!
Oh my god–SO DO I!!!