Everyone sing! It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all! It’s a small, small world.
I just couldn’t resist! Now you have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
Over the past couple of weeks I was engaged in hosting people from all over the United States that came to New England to attend a RV rally that was being held by the Escapees organization. This organization is a wonderful resource for all RVers but they are something really special for full time RVers like myself. They provide a mail forwarding service that provides me an actual mailing address. They provide great programs to keep me safe. See my blog from last year on the 3 little words every girl wants to hear. They show you how to maintain and fix things that may go wrong with your RV. They also have this wonderful CARE facility that provides you shelter and assistance if you become injured and need a place to recuperate including meals. Which to me as a single person that does not want to burden my children, is a very valuable service to know that it is there. Within the Escapees membership are smaller subsets of people known as Birds of a Feather or BOFs. I happen to belong to a couple of them, the Boomers, the SOLOS, the Boondockers, and the tents are not dead group. There are all kinds of groups, there are photography groups, pet owner groups, integrated medicine groups, there is even a group for nudists called birds without feathers.( 🙂 I thought that was clever) essentially the BOFs are the Meetup groups for RVers that are members of Escapees.
Last year, I attended a rally held on the west coast and was hanging with the SOLO’s BOF and I asked if I could volunteer to do something for the group. They indicated that they could use someone to organize a Pre Rally for next year’s Escapees rally known as the Escapade in 2016. I eagerly took on the assignment of head organizer for the Escapees Pre-rally. As the Escapade was scheduled for Vermont in 2016, I thought I’d have the pre-rally in Connecticut. CT is near and dear to my heart and it is often neglected, typically considered a pass through state from New York to Boston.  I wanted people to see Connecticut. I was able to play tour guide of this lovely state and had been hanging out with these folks for several days, one of the ladies who identified herself as being from Long Island NY and recently widowed had talked about her wonderful beloved husband and how he was a music school teacher that worked in CT at some point in his life. She was taking the time to visit some of the spots and schools he had worked at while in CT. It took another day for me to realize that her last name was the same last name as my elementary music school teacher. A man that I loved growing up. When I think of my formative years and good male role models that I had, I always think of my dad first, then this teacher. His last name is distinctive and not a last name you would hear much in these parts, but her husband’s first name is Bob and my teacher’s first name was Ray. Could it be that there were multiple children in the same family that became music school teachers? So I asked, and sure enough Ray was her brother in law. He is still alive and well and living in West Hartford CT! She connected us and we have talked on the phone and now I have plans to meet up with him and his wife to do dinner at the end of the month. How awesome is that? I love small world connections! What is your best small world experience?
3 Responses
Your teacher is probably very happy that you reached out to him. That is so reaffirming of the work he did.
I came over from England to Norwich CT in grade school (late 60’s) and had a teacher named Mrs. Browning. She made me read in front of the class every day as she loved my English accent and the proper way I spoke.
From there we moved to Westport Ct, Newburgh NY and OKC.
In 1986 I moved back to CT and got a job at CSC in Norwich. One day I worked over until noon and a friend wanted me to eat lunch with her in the cafeteria before I went home, so I said okay and we sat down. A man in a wheelchair came in, who knew my friend, and asked if he could eat with us. As we sat there talking he asked where I was from, as he said I didn’t sound like I was from CT, so I told him I lived in OK but was born in England. He said, “oh, I don’t like English people” and when I asked why, he said, “when I was little, all my mom talked about was this little Englsih girl in her class and how she sounded so grown up and she’d go on and on about her.”
I asked him what his last name was and he said, “Browning.”
I was that little girl.
In high school, 1977, OKC, Egnlish class, we were doing Shakespeare and I had some pictures of his house, etc as I lived in England so I brought them in to the class. The teacher explained that I was born in England. This girl in my class says, “oh I was born there too.” When I asked where she was born, she said, “Oxford.” So was I.
She had to go home and ask, but it turned out we were born in the same hospital one day apart. I was born 8/31/59 and she was born 9/1/59. Back then you’d stay in the hospital for a few days to a week, so BOTH of us were in the same nursery room at the same time and here we were on different CONTINENTS in the same class room, at the same time 18 years later.
What are the chances?