Another chance meeting

When you have lived as long as I have, you begin to wonder if casual unplanned meetings are really planned by some cosmic force way off somewhere who really enjoys watching people and how they react in situations they find themselves in. Some of these so-called chance meetings result in friendships of long standing, like my friends Dick and Annie Egan in Sister Bay, Wisconsin, but most just turn into memories of varied lasting duration.

One still vivid in my mind happened a few years ago in a most unlikely setting - the checkout line at the local Sam's Warehouse. (Incidentally, my wife gave me permission to write about this. She's not threatened at all.) It occurred about noon on a weekday. I rolled my cart to the line which seemed to be the least crowded, paying attention to only the contents of the basket in front of me and not the person, or persons in this case.

Checkout lines are places where you learn patience, and as I waited patiently I began to notice the two persons in front of me. One was a young girl of about twelve who looked Eurasian - very pretty young girl whom you could project breaking some hearts of high school boys someday. The adult with her was a tall, attractive woman, probably in her late twenties or early thirties. She had short blonde hair in what I think the ladies call a "feather cut". I think her eyes were blue, and she had on athletic shorts (short but not too short), and a tee shirt which said "Princeton Athletic Department".

They didn't have much in their cart, but as the woman hefted a case of bottled water onto the counter, her graceful moves were apparent. My mind begin to wonder about her - what was her story?

I had a mentor in my business career named Cam Gregory. We both worked on the Corporate Staff of a company (Landmark
Communications) in Norfolk, VA, which owned newspapers, tv and radio stations and other media properties. Cam was about twenty years older than me and was a fun person to travel with. He had an English degree which resulted in him having been a newspaper reporter for years in Norfolk until he became our company's first VP of Personnel. Now he had decided to retire to teach English at Old Dominion University in Norfolk and the owner of our company, Frank Batten, has asked me to transfer from being Corporate Treasurer to the personnel job.

As part of Cam's breaking me in to personnel responsibilities, we were visiting Landmark's various media properties located all over the U.S. At this particular moment late on Friday afternoon, we were sitting in the Louisville, KY, airport awaiting our flight back to Norfolk after a weary week. Cam, always energetic, sat back, put his hands under his belt, smiled and said I bet you I can name fifty old time movie cowboys. (He was a movie buff, among his many interests.) By now I knew Cam well enough to know that if he said he could do this, there was not doubt he could, but, playing along, I told him "no way".)

Well, he immediately, without any hesitation, named more than fifty old time movie cowboys, and we had a good laugh which helped break the monotony of waiting. I wasn't as patient at waiting in my younger days - guess I just hadn't been through enough checkout lines.

We decided we had enough time to have dinner before the flight, so we went into the airport restaurant, ordered, and were waiting on our food. Cam began to look around and saw an older man with a young woman, probably in her twenties. He said, "Isn't that sad". Caught off guard, I asked him what was sad? He said "you see that man and young woman over at that table on the right? That's a man and his daughter. She flew in for a visit and they are having dinner before she flys back to her home in Philadelphia where she is working now. They are sad because his wife, her mom, died a few months ago, and they both miss her and are still trying to adjust to life without her."

"Cam," I said, "how could you possibly know that about those people?" He laughed and his explanation gave me some valuable insight which would help me later in life as I left my business interests and finally turned to my passion - writing. Cam was a writer himself, not only doing reporting but fiction as well. He said he started sitting around in situations like this, observing people, and then would make up stories about them. Since these were people whom mostly he had never laid eyes on before, the stories probably were far from the truth, but he didn't care. His stories satisfied him and were helpful writing fiction.

So as I waited in line behind this beautiful, blonde lady, I, remembering Cam, I began to make up a story for her. Her hair was truly blonde and not out of a bottle, so I decided she probably had a Scandinavian background and was from somewhere in the midwest, probably grew up on a farm in North or South Dakota. Her graceful moves and her Princeton Athletic tee shirt led me to conclude she was at home on the tennis court and probably the basketball court. She turned to athletics when she was a young girl since her whole family was athletic. Her dad had played football in college and her mom was a swimmer and ran track. Her two brothers inherited the parents' athletic ability, as she did, and played three sports at their small country high school.

Since we live near the Air Force Academy, I surmised she was probably an AFA graduate. Her dad had been a pilot in Vietnam, and although he didn't talk much about his Air Force service she, being daddy's girl, had sort of by osmosis developed a desire to go to the Academy. After graduation, she was stationed at the Academy as an assistant in the women's athletic department and now was the head women's basketball coach.

As for the Eurasian girl with her, she was adopted. The woman had listened to her dad speak once in a great while about the orphans he had seen in Vietnam, and after much prayer she had decided to adopt the girl. As the girl looked at the blonde you could see the admiration in her eyes, and it was apparent they had a close relationship.

They didn't talk much, and I noticed the blonde was deep in thought. One of the better players on her basketball team was struggling with personal problems and her grades were suffering and threatening her eligibility. As she waited, she was contemplating how the best approach to take with the player to see how she could help her.

Finally, it was their turn to check out, and it didn't take much time since they didn't have many items. The blonde glanced at me with a faint smile, and they left. Her graceful, unhurried gait bespoke a quiet confidence, and I somehow wished I knew her true story.

I checked out and rolled my basket to the back of my car to unload it. Parked nose to nose with my car was a white Expedition with an Air Force Academy sticker on the windshield. The passenger side door was open and the Eurasian girl was sitting in the passenger seat. The blonde was standing just inside the door and they were munching on something. The blonde looked at me and smiled and asked if I would like a cookie. She held out the big red can, and I wondered about the coincidence. It was a can of Creme de Pirouline chocolate hazlenut cookies, my favorite store bought cookie.

She stood there smiling what we old guys would call a "dazzling" smile, not just with her mouth but her eyes as well. Befuddled by the moment I could only thank her as we turned to walk back to our cars. I waved at the little girl and did manage to tell the blonde I liked her hair, that my wife had her hair cut like that. She smiled again as I drove away.

Now this is where I begin to wonder if some cosmic force was playing with me. Why did I get in line behind these two people? How come they bought my favorite cookies? As huge as Sam's parking lot is, why did we end up parking next to each other? Somewhere out there is some one having a good laugh? Or is it my muse perpertrating this whole thing to give me something to write about?

I don't keep any secrets from my wife, and as I tell her about all this, she just smiles in a way which tells me she is not threatened. She understands people like Cam and me, and I think how lucky I am.

So what about chance encounters? Do they serve a purpose in life? If so, what is it?

Now everytime I go to the cupboard and get the big red can off the shelf and munch a Pirouline with my coffee, I wonder about the blonde and the little girl. It would be nice to know their true story, but, alas, it's probably not meant to be. I hope it has a happy ending.