You can travel the world and still run into people from home

“We began chatting,” Dorsey wrote. “He mentioned he was a professor at Penn State. I mentioned, very randomly, ‘Oh, an in depth good friend of mine’s ex-brother-in-law is a professor there. Have you learnt Eduardo?’

“He replied, astonished, ‘I’m Eduardo.’ ”

Allow us to now journey from New Hampshire to Egypt, which Patricia and Joe Howard visited 40 years in the past. At some point they dutifully trooped to the Nice Pyramid and joined the road to get in. However as soon as that they had entered the dim, slender — and crowded — passageway, they modified their minds and circled.

“We couldn’t buck the stream of individuals coming in so we moved to the facet, the place an alcove provided a spot to attend for an opportunity to go exterior,” wrote Patricia, of Mitchellville, Md.

Two different folks had sought refuge in the identical alcove.

“We couldn’t see each other within the dim mild, however the different girl mentioned she was from Seattle,” Pat wrote. “I mentioned I used to dwell there.”

They continued with the forwards and backwards till the girl mentioned she had managed a metropolis recreation space in West Seattle referred to as Camp Lengthy.

“I used to be floored,” Pat wrote. “I used to work there throughout my senior yr in highschool in 1954.”

They exchanged names within the sepulchral darkness and realized that they had labored collectively.

“As soon as we acquired out into daylight, though it had been a few years and we would not have acknowledged one another in a lineup, we knew we had been pals and we hugged in amazement!” Pat wrote.

Suzanne Beerthuis grew up in Cowles, Neb., a small village exterior of Purple Cloud. On Saturday nights, her household would drive to Purple Cloud to buy, socialize and go to a produce vendor to receives a commission for the eggs and cream his truck had picked up from them through the week.

On the desk can be somebody Suzanne held in complete awe: the proprietor’s daughter, a wonderful redhead who was a majorette within the band.

“I all the time appeared ahead to the encounter however was too shy to start out a dialog,” wrote Suzanne, who lives in Alexandria now.

Years later, on the College of Nebraska, Suzanne dated a dental pupil whose roommate was from Tempe, Ariz. “As soon as I broke up with the dental pupil, I by no means noticed him or his roommate once more,” wrote Suzanne.

Why did I hassle to say the dental pupil’s roommate? As a result of a decade later, whereas instructing in a Division of Protection college in France, Suzanne took a visit to Berlin. On New 12 months’s Eve, she checked out the scene on the Officers Membership, which was adjoining to Tempelhof air base.

“As I walked via the foyer of the bottom, I couldn’t imagine it: the redhead from the produce station in Purple Cloud!” Suzanne wrote.

The lady acknowledged Suzanne. A break up second later, Suzanne noticed that Tempe roommate dashing up. What had been the chances of those two disparate folks popping up on the identical place on the identical time?

Then the person mentioned: “Hiya, Suzanne! We’re celebrating our fifth anniversary! However we’re about to overlook our aircraft!”

And off they ran, leaving Suzanne to marvel how they met.

In 1987, Keith Bickel and his girlfriend, Suzan Onel, had simply completed a trip on Cape Cod earlier than heading off to their separate graduate faculties.

“Whereas ready for the prepare to D.C. we struck up a dialog with a beautiful couple who turned out to be a minimum of the dad and mom of Peter Wolf, lead singer of the J. Geils Band,” wrote Keith, of McLean.

Three years later, Suzan and Keith had been at a tiny trattoria in Florence, the place they had been celebrating their honeymoon.

“We had been sitting at a communal desk and acquired to speaking with the girl throughout from us, solely to find that she was the mom of Danny Klein, the bassist for the J. Geils band!” Keith wrote. “To this present day, we discuss to any stranger whereas on journey within the hopes that we meet but extra band members’ dad and mom.”

A couple of years again, Noell Sottile went to the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. On the flight again, she exchanged pleasantries with the girl seated subsequent to her. Wrote Noell: “When she requested me the place I lived and I replied Silver Spring, she mentioned, ‘So do I! The place?’ ”

When Noell described the placement of her home, the girl requested, “Are you Bilbo’s proprietor?!”

It turned out the girl knew Noell’s canine, an amiable rescue from Kosovo who loves hanging out within the yard, watching the passing scene and greeting folks via the fence.

Wrote Noell: “I ceaselessly discover people greeting him once we are out strolling — folks I’ve by no means met however who know my canine from strolling previous our yard! My canine has extra pals than I do.”