Bare in mind these facts, I graduated high school in Baltimore Maryland, after which I migrated to Lowell Massachusetts.
In Lowell, prior to being drafted into the Army, I had three different jobs in two years. The last being at a small furniture factory, where I worked in the shipping department. And this other fellow worked in the packing department.
He got drafted and I took over his job. Two months later I get drafted. I was sent to fort Jackson South Carolina, for basic training. I walk into a beer hall on a Saturday, who Do I see?
The same young fella who’s job I took over in Lowell.
After completing basic training I was sent to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for my advanced infantry training. One Sunday as I lined up outside the mess hall with dozens of other recruits, I hear a familiar voice a few fellas in front of me. This person had one of those voices that stand out from from the crowd, like Jimmy Stewart. So I look at his name tag and sure enough, I hung around with this fella in high school, in Baltimore Maryland.
These fantastic coincidences don’t stop there .
From Texas, the Army sent me to Germany, where I spent 18 months. One night my drinking buddy Billy and I were out cruising around bars in different towns. Around last call, just before returning to base, we decided to hit one more bar in downtown Kitzingen Germany. We entered, and before our eyes could adjust to the difference in lighting, I hear my name called out, in a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. Sitting there in the same bar, the same town, 5,000 miles away from home, a quarter of the way around the world, was Anthony whom I hung around with in Lowell Massachusetts before I got drafted.
Do these incidents defy the odds?
There is more. After I got married, and bought a house. My wife and I made friends with an older lady across the street, I took care of her house for her and we became close friends. I even called her mother. As she got older she decided to sell the house and move to Florida because she could no longer take the cold and snow of the New England winters. A few years later we went on vacation to Florida, we spent a few days at Disney World and other attractions around Orlando. Then we decided to take a drive down to West Palm Beach and visit with my neighbor. She lived in a senior citizens trailer park, with a community center. She met a guy and wanted us to go with her to the community center to meet him. Well! who does she introduce me to But Tony M. Tony and I both worked for the same company, albeit in different towns and we often came across each other in meetings. Tony retired a number of years back and moved to Florida. What a coincidence.
Read on!!!
My friend informed us that her sister also had a trailer in the same park and wanted to introduce us. As we were visiting at her sisters house, a few people came to visit. The woman took one look at my wife and said ” you are Dolly’s daughter”. You look exactly like her when we were best friends, before she got married. She hadn’t seen Dolly since. Well it just so happens that my wife’s parents also moved to Florida, so she hooked the two up.
The street address at my last house where my daughter Mandi was born was 123. Unfortunately, she passed away from an overdose, while living our current house. She passed in the middle of the night, my brother in law shouted for me to wake up and help. As I woke and looked at the clock, it was 1:23 am.
Oh and one small one. As I was driving down the road behind a pickup truck I noticed the number plate was a special one, something to do with free choice. We came to a stop light, which opened up to two lanes. As we were waiting for the light to change, a small car pulled up beside the truck. Because I always look at number plates, Lo and behold it was the same type of special plate and to top that off, it was the next consecutive number. This was February 28th 2018.
If there are any statisticians reading this blog, I would like to know the odds of these occurrences.
Recently on June 7, 2019, I went to the supermarket for food. My bill came up to $77.77. The check out girl commented that I should play those numbers. I pointed out the date to her OMG she replied. When I got home I perused the ticket one more time and noticed that her register was #7. Wow.
The very next day I went to Macdonalds and my ticket # was 777. Go figure.