It's a Small World After All

[Janus58]

I had one of those "What are the chances?" moments this weekend. My wife and I were attending a Finnish Folk festival in the Small town of Naselle, WA. It's an event that they hold every two years, and this was our first time. On Saturday, we were sitting at a table and struck up a conversation with another couple. Since the reason this town holds this festival was because of a significant number of people with Finnish heritage living in the area, I was asked if I was from around there. I responded, no, that we were from Portland, but that I was originally from a part of Northern MN that also had a large Finnish-American population. The husband responded that so was he, and it turned out that he was born ~40 miles from where I was when I lived there.

Now, if that were not enough of a coincidence, after a bit of back and forth, a woman joined us, and the wife introduced her as a cousin from Michigan. I asked if she was from the Upper Peninsula, because I had a great Uncle who had been a chiropractor in a small town there. She asked his name, and when I told her, she recognized it. She and someone else ( I can't remember how they were related) had just recently been in this small town, and the person she was with had noticed that the clinic still had my great uncle's name on it. The reason it caught their attention was because they had been treated by him some time in the past. They also expressed surprise at his name being there; questioning whether he was still in practice ( I should hope not, as he passed away in 1980, and thus one would think that his license would have expired by now.) It was one of those odd coincidences that life throws at you from time to time.

 

[geordief]

I had a different coincidence.The car broke down directly as we returned home -rather than on the road (it was a short, 9 km journey during which I noticed it was driving a bit "woozy" around the bends.

We made it back to the house practically in its normal parking spot and then ,literally the back wheel fell off as the axle sheared.

Had it happened anywhere else we would have been blocking traffick as there was no way of moving it at all.

Btw ,are you being spared the wild fires this year?

It seems very bad in places and, over here Bordeaux has the feel of a war zone with talk of the whole city possibly being evacuated depending on the breath of the gods.

 

[Seattle]

I have two "small world" experiences that stood out. I had a close friend in college who lived a few doors down in the dorm. I knew he had a younger brother but nothing more than that. The school was in NC, he was from Michigan.

We both left to go to law school, for me that was in Spokane. I ended up switching interests and left to go to Phoenix for an MBA in International Business. While on the small campus of this private school I saw someone that looked very similar to my friend.

I heard someone call him "Campbell" which was my friend's last name. He wasn't in any of my classes but one day I asked if he had a brother named Mark and he said yes. He was my friend's younger brother, I didn't know he was going there, my friend Mark didn't know I was going there.

He brought me up to date regarding Mark.

Another time I was on vacation in Thailand with my (then) wife at Patong Beach near Phuket. We took a tour bus to a Thai kickboxing match in Phuket about 25 miles away. A guy that I knew (not well) who used to work where I did and now worked elsewhere came in (he was on this trip without his wife) and sat in the seat right in front of my wife.

Most of the prostitutes from the beach are just cute young girls dressed normally. He came in with an ugly prostitute, dressed in leopard skin and she sat in front of me.

I told my wife "that's Mel". She said "no". I said "yes it is". About halfway though the match he went to the bathroom and you could tell when he came back to his seat that he now realized that we were there.

At the end when the tour buses come back, blow their horn and you go out there, he was awkwardly hanging back to make sure that we left first.

After I was back at work, my old boss called me for something business related and he and Mel had started their own company so I said "I was just on vacation in Thailand and saw Mel. Tell him hi"

It's a small world...

 

[geordief]

Oh,that sort of coincidence!

Well,in the 70s I worked hard on low pay to get a ticket via USA to S America.
You had to go to the American consulate back then and they stamped your passport for a 6 month tourist visa.

When I got to JFK, the immigration control officer took a dislike to me and crossed out the 6 months and changed it to 3 months.

No skin off my back as I was just passing through.

I did go across the States and down as far as Guatemala before turning back and re entering the States south of San Diego.

There at the border and across the concourse I saw the same immigration officer again and quickened my step to avoid meeting him again.

But he saw me and came across , having remembered my face and asking to see my passport with the Visa stamp.

He could see I had not stayed in America to work illegaĺly and said "I should have believed you"

 

[exchemist]

I had a different coincidence.The car broke down directly as we returned home -rather than on the road (it was a short, 9 km journey during which I noticed it was driving a bit "woozy" around the bends.

We made it back to the house practically in its normal parking spot and then ,literally the back wheel fell off as the axle sheared.

Had it happened anywhere else we would have been blocking traffick as there was no way of moving it at all.

Btw ,are you being spared the wild fires this year?

It seems very bad in places and, over here Bordeaux has the feel of a war zone with talk of the whole city possibly being evacuated depending on the breath of the gods.

That would be appalling. I’m feeling sorry for the vignerons. The 2026 vintage will be ruined by smoke taint and they may even lose the actual vineyards, with century old vines of great value being destroyed. That would take a generation to recover from. I imagine that in turn would wreck the economy of the city. It starts to have the feel of the great Lisbon earthquake, in terms of impact. I hope to God the wind changes.