It's a small world after all

Yeah. Pretty massive FAIL on my part. Not good, but not exactly surprising, either.

 

Several years ago I was at a road race in the major metro area near Microville. After the race I wore a sweatshirt of the local Catholic school in my hometown. An older lady noticed it, said she was from that area too (which is completely on the other coast, 3000 miles away).

We started talking, turns out she went to grade school and high school with my mother in their tiny little hometown and knew each other quite well. She knew my dad, too.

Several years later, I have on a different sweatshirt of the same college at a different race up there, and run into another woman about my age who says, "I grew up near there." I said, "So did I, in the little town of xxxx." She sayd, "So did I, my last name is xxxxx."

Turns out her older sister was a casual acquaintance who was in my graduating class, and I'd played high school/amateur baseball with her older brother, who married a woman who grew up around the corner from me and was one of my closest friends in high school.

 

This place?

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09137/970552-66.stm

 

Hanging out with one of the new copy editors that my paper hired one night, he told me that he was a graduate of University of Washington, as if the hats, shirts, posters and all were not enough for me to tell. Come to find out after a little more talking that in the year I spent at UW, we had a class together. It was one of the classes with 500 people in it so I didn't know him.

 

I was talking with our newest reporter. I knew that she grew up in the same city that my aunt and uncle live in, which is in our coverage area. Turns out that my aunt and uncle and her parents share a back fence.

 

I was sitting at a local bar near the University of Maryland one evening and was shooting the breeze with a guy who was seated a couple of places from me there. We got to talking about a number of subjects and I mentioned that I used to be a newspaper editor.

Then he mentions that his father's currently in the business. Within a matter of seconds, I found out his father is John Haydon, the soccer columnist from The Washington Times.

It reminded me of the year I covered D.C. United for SoccerSpot, which was a Web site devoted to covering Major League Soccer by fans for fans. I'd met John Haydon during that time. After a match that D.C. United lost, I questioned then-coach Thomas Rongen about team's midfield play, since it looked to me like it was suspect in that particular match. Rongen basically called me out, questioning if I had a coaching certificate to make that comment.

Before the next home match, Haydon came up to me and told me he thought Rongen's actions were completely uncalled for. Then, the part that was the absolute kicker to me: He told me I was absolutely right about the team's midfield play that match. It gave me the sort of validation I really needed at the time.

Later on that year, I had gained a reputation among the other reporters for asking "interesting" questions, later getting then-Columbus Crew coach Tom Fitzgerald to snap, "I don't need to talk about it, you guys talk about it all the time" when I asked about his team's then-12 match losing streak at RFK Stadium following Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. After they came back and lost Game 3 at RFK, he began his presser by noting that the streak was now at 13. I felt my "career" even as an unpaid "civilian journalist" got a major shot in the arm courtesy of John Haydon.

Needless to say, it was quite trippy to sit there and talk to Jesse Haydon.

 

While deployed to a place in the middle of the Indian Ocean (when I was in the Guard) in 2004/05, I ran into a kid from rural northeast Mississippi whom I'd covered on the local basketball team.

 

I met 21 at Stans - a bar outside the old Yankee Stadium. She walked in wearing her credentials and carrying notebook. Someone knocked book out of her hand and I picked it up for her and offered to buy her a drink. We started talking and I asked her if she ever spent time at SJ. She gave me kind of a funny look and tried to change subject. Curiosity got the best of me and I blurted out are you by any chance 21? It was the Grey Goose that gave her away.

 

One night in Upstate NY I hooked up with girl I met in a bar who went to my high school - in Arizona.

I took a piss next to guy in O'Hare Airport who I played basketball with in Phoenix.

I have had a kid yell my name across a street in NYC when I visited. She was a camper when I was a counselor.

I swear to God, I think I saw Zag walking out of the PNC one night when I was drinking with a few buddies and we were stumbling back to the Clemente Bridge.

 

I had worked with a reporter for years, but didn't know we grew up about 5 miles apart.. in a city 500 miles away. In fact, she went to a high school where my dad was a teacher, and had taken classes from him.

She recently posted a photo on Facebook and an old high school friend of mine commented on it. Turns out they were college roommates at a school 1000 miles away, and hadn't known each other before that.

 

Hanover?

 

One professional, one personal:

One night covering a shooting in Cape Girardeau (SE Missouri), I'm making small talk with the TV crew on duty as we stand in the police department's lobby. Reporter says he can tell from my accent I'm not a Missourian. Tell him I'm from SE Michigan and turns out he is, too. I ask what town and he says one I've probably never heard of, Sterling Heights. I lived there more than 15 years. Then I ask if he played for a certain football coach. He did. So did my son, several years later. Their photos are on the high school's wall of fame.

Personal: I volunteered for an organization and met a guy at the post-season picnic. We figured out what seemed so familiar a few months after we started dating. Our dads had worked together for years at Chrysler. Second small world -- about a year earlier, his ex-sister-in-law had tried to set us up on a date. Based on stories about his brother (her ex), I'd declined. Probably shouldn't have gone out with him after the picnic, either, but ... lo que sea...