This morning I went to Bill Heard Chevrolet to have my truck serviced. After I turned the car over to them I thought I would go their waiting room and have a free cup of coffee, as I always do.
In the waiting room was a polite gentle looking lady sitting there watching TV. I always like to talk to polite gentle looking ladies – they always seem so agreeable and even seem to appreciate my wit… but I often wonder if they are laughing with or at me.
We talked about briefly about traveling… well actually about putting miles on our vehicles – how little each of us do. I think I have her beat in little mileage on the vehicle because I probably average 2 miles a day.
It is a small world and this used to be a small town that just about everybody knew one another and I am always aware of that. So, I asked her if she was a native. No, she was born in upstate New York, lived there until she was about five, then moved to Virginia where she grew up at. I dropped a few city names in upstate New York, like Carmel, that I used to visit my uncle and places in Virginia that we visited as tourists… but no bells went off.
Someplace in our conversation I mentioned that I was a native of Marietta – that is probably how it started when I walked into the room and said, “Hi! I was born in Marietta!” – joking.
She asked me if I knew Rupert Raines and I said yes, I knew him well back in high school, he was a few years ahead of me, but we more or less ran in the same crowd . Then she said, “I bet you know my husband Jackie T”.
I sure do! We both lived on Manget Street most of our becoming teenage years. I know Jackie and his three brothers.
As soon as she told me Jackie’s name I instantly thought of an e-mail I got recently from our class president or secretary or whatever, here is a portion of it:
Jackie was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which is an incurable but treatable cancer. He is having chemo and in April will begin a 100 day complete bone marrow transplant
I hate to bring up things unpleasant. But she knew something I would like to have know, so I asked, “How is Jackie – I heard he isn’t doing too good.”
She said he wasn’t well at all. He was waiting on the marrow transplant.
She asked me my name again, she wanted to tell Jackie she ran into me. I said, “Eddie Hunter”. Or “Rock Hunter”. She wasn’t sure she could remember that or not, and didn’t have a pen and paper, so said, I’ll just call him and tell him.
She pulled out her cell phone, called him and told him. Then she handed the phone to me… and it was a nice reunion. We talked briefly and they told her that her car was ready, so I gave the phone back to her.
I told her I would be thinking of them.
Small world.
4 comments:
et,
I run into this phenomenon all the time. There is actually a Hunter relative through John R. Hunter (Frank's brother)here on Jekyll. My favorite story is from when I worked at the museum in Kennesaw. I struck up a conversation with this man who talked about how much the place had changed. Long story short, Herbert taught him to fly, he joined the Air Corp, went to work for Lockheed in California and hadn't been home since. It had been since 1952 that he had even seen any of his old friends from Marietta. Of course that old friend was Stanley, who was in CAL to learn (from this man) the electrical systems for this new plane called the C-130 that Lockheed might build for a couple of years. Small world indeed!
j3
J3,
It is amazing how small the world is. One time I was checking a new person into our squadron (Navy) in NAS Lakehurst, NJ. He mentioned something to the effect that he was from Georgia.
"Where at in Georgia" I asked.
"Near Georgia Tech" he said.
"Near Tech - Atlanta?"
"No, a little town north of there, Marietta."
I don't know why he chose to say was from "Near Georgia Tech" instead of Marietta.
But, to cut to the meat: His brother and I were in the same Scout Explorer group, at Maple Avenue Methodist Church.
And to cut to the bone: I mentioned that in my next email home and somehow Mama knew the guy's mother and knew we were related through the Tysons. I think we were actually related through the Hueys. Hueys or Tysons, they were all the same to Mama.
People stray far from home so much these days. Have not been to Lewisburg where I grew up in many decades. Need to do that. And to bump into people whose names I remember but whose faces are far too changed to recognize.
Si,
It is strange how that works with different people. Some people stray away and never return, and others return when they retire. My mother was from north Georgia and she returned rarely and looked up old friends, but I don't think it was the same.
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