Thursday, April 10, 2014

What's your Small World Story?

I was chatting with my friend Debbie who writes`at The Friday Friends about chance encounters that make you say, what a small world. That led me to thinking of other stories I've heard as well as bizarre moments in our lives.

OK, my best Small World story. I tagged along on one of my husband’s business trips which was in Ocala Florida (that is 185 miles south of our home). Sitting at the hotel bar was another couple who nodded at us as we took our seats and ordered. The TV flashed up some baseball scores and I asked, to anyone in general, “Did anyone see the score for the Phillies game?”

The lady across from me looks up and asks, “Are you from Philly?” I say, “Well, a very small suburb south, you wouldn’t have heard of it. Brookhaven.”

She says, “Brookhaven?! I am from Upland!” This is amazing because it’s where I tromped around, my Nana lived there, I went to school in the attached borough, know the place very well.

“I am doing genealogy research there,”she says.

‘Hey, I have loads of info on Upland,” I volunteer. My cousin still lives there, and blah, blah blah.”

Then the lady says, “My cousin Gail lives there too.” I say, “Gail….my cousin’s name is Gail. Gail XYZ.”

Turns out – me and the lady at the bar are cousins! She calls our cousin Gail and we are passing the phone around. We have the same great grandfather and start comparing notes. Wild! A chance meeting because neither of us were in our home city. She lived further south, just staying one night from her home 200 miles south of Ocala. Truly this is a chance encounter.

We exchanged email addresses as we both want to compare notes on our genealogical pursuits but alas, we are not in touch.

That's my small world story.

Do you have one? I'm listening........

11 comments:

  1. That's so crazy!! I love stories like that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is a great story. Very cool! Talk about small world.

    Velva

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like freaky things like that too. My father, who lived near Philly, mentioned to his barber that he was coming to Florida to visit me and mentioned the road we live on. Turns out the barber had gone to church behind our house when he was a kid. My dad had been going to that barber for over 20 years before they shared that info. Just a chance conversation.
    I took a photo of the church for him, sent it back with my dad last time he was here :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. SOB!

    I just lost a mammoth post ...

    That's SOB as in tears not anything else I might be choosing to call Blogger right now!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. p.s. This is me not my mother!!

    Mrs L
    x

    ReplyDelete
  6. p.s. This is me not my mother!!

    Mrs L
    x

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh no, I hate when I lose a big post, we'll..,,,if feel up to rye typing send me an email. That should save your work in case the internet craps out!

    ReplyDelete
  8. After I moved to Tampa, work sent me to Denver for a conference where I met a guy from Arkansas that I thought hey, I'll friend him on Facebook. When I looked him up we had friends in common. When I asked him how he knew them, he replied that he went to high school with them...WHAT?!? I went to high school with them. Turns out we were both from Tallahassee and went to Leon just at different times! That's my crazy small world story :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Branch, that's a good one! Imagine meeting someone so far away who had lived in your hometown. Wow!

    ReplyDelete

Welcome and thank you so much for visiting. If I don't answer you here I will get back to you on your blog. Also have had to switch to approving comments due to some SPAM lately. Alas...

It's been a good run...........