I Was Thinking... A Small World

With the vast array of communication devices, we now have at our fingertips, reaching out to people a distance away is easier than ever. We rarely write letters and wait impatiently for the mailman to deliver a response. Using long distance to call someone is a thing of the past. With a cell phone in nearly everyone’s pocket or purse, we can always be in touch.
But even without these modern miracles of communication, it is amazing how often we can make a connection with someone we don’t really know.
Everyone has a story about running into someone you know unexpectedly. Our family was in Disney World in Florida over Christmas when our kids were small. It was so crowded that they stopped selling tickets to enter.
Despite the over 100,000 people filling the facility to capacity, we still ran into another family from Kasson. Later as we waited along a crowded street for the evening parade, a teacher who had once worked with me but now lived in Indianapolis just happened to show up. It can be a small world after all and not just the Disney ride of the same name.
We have been lucky enough to travel over the years and more so after we retired. But it seems no matter where you go, you can always find someone with which you can find a connection. I was sitting at a stock car dirt racetrack in Arizona some years ago and started to talk to the couple next to me.
Within minutes I found they lived near my hometown. She knew one of my cousins and he had worked with another cousin. While attending a huge flea market in Mesa, we were walking down one of the long aisles and ran into our plumber from Kasson.
A few years later at the same market, I stopped at one booth only to have the lady say, “I know you.” It turned out her mother and my mother were close friends and this woman had been a student of mine in a Sunday School class I taught when I was a senior in high school. Her husband then remembered he and I had attended the same 4-H camp together.
On a recent trip out east, we were having breakfast at our hotel in Kentucky and began talking to the two couples at the next table. One couple was from New York and the other from Pennsylvania. We soon learned one of them had a sister that had lived in Elysian, Minn. (pop. 682) where we have a trailer in a campground. On that same trip we were visiting Thomas Jefferson’s home of Monticello near Charlottesville, Va. and stopped for some ice cream at a small shop on the grounds. I had my Minnesota Twins cap on, and the clerk asked where we were from. When we told her Kasson, she said she was from Dodge Center and had attended Triton School District where my wife had taught. They talked about people they both knew. Small world.
On a trip to Europe, our bus stopped in one of the smallest countries in the world, Liechtenstein, so we could get our passports stamped. Another tourist bus had arrived before ours and someone getting off was wearing a Packers jacket. I approached one of them to find out the lady lived in the town next to where I grew up and my cousin’s wife had done sewing for her. When I passed several men talking they mentioned Marinette County, where I was born. After a brief chat, I found they knew my cousin from the sheriff’s department. Small world.
On a trip to Boston, we met another tour group and ran into a brother of somebody from my high school class. In Glacier National Park we talked to a family overlooking one of the scenic views and found they knew a teacher from Wanamingo I taught with. In Tortilla Flats, Ariz., my wife talked to a man who was a neighbor of her mother’s cousin.
So, no matter where you go, if you take a chance and talk to someone you don’t know, you may make a connection, because it is really a small world.
Did You Ever Wonder? — If it is called “Tourist Season,” why can’t you shoot them?