I Love a Good Coincidence (Or Two)

Over the summer, I read a number of books.  The one that stood out for me was The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.  I related to it on a number of levels, but mostly, it was just one of those books with great characterization.  The book follows a group of people who meet at summer camp and become lifelong friends and how their lives progress over the next 35 years.

I'm one of those people who have remained in contact with a multitude of childhood friends.  The majority of my closest friends have been in my life for at least 35 years.  I was like this long before Facebook came into existence, but thank you FB for providing me with even more people from my past to love!  All kidding aside, if you were my friend sometime in the past 50 years, there's probably a good chance you are stuck with me for life.

I also attended summer camp one year when I was around age 13.  It was not a highlight of my life, but I did make a friend (and yes, still do keep in contact with her).  More enjoyable for me was when I worked 'Winter Weekends' at that same camp when I was in high school.

So.....in the midst of reading The Interestings, imagine my surprise and delight to be contacted via FB by a guy I used to work Winter Weekends with.  He lives in Florida, but was in the area to take his daughter to our old camp for the week.  He wanted to know if I was free to get together.  Um....YES! I had not seen him in 32 years and I think the last contact I had with him was in 1986 by phone.  While we are FB friends, he was one of those drive-by Facebookers who set up an account, friend a few people, and then is never seen again.  I knew he was married with a family and where he was living, but that was about it.

Can I just say how FABULOUS it was to reconnect with him??  He has served in two different armed forces, lived all over the world, managed to earn two degrees, marry a gorgeous woman from another country and raise bilingual kids, and is still an officer.  I get the greatest sense of comfort and security from seeing people from my past succeed in life and be happy.

I have zero memories of any of the campers we watched over or really, what exactly we did on Winter Weekends (besides sledding down a monsterous hill), but I do remember the fun he and I had, playing pranks on each other at every opportunity.  We were just a couple of 15 year olds who liked each other, but were both too immature to do anything but play games. Ah, youth.

So, we are sitting there having coffee, and my friend is wearing a camp t-shirt that he bought when he dropped his daughter off.  We are about 75 miles from the actual camp.  We get up to leave and a young man in a suit and tie approaches us and says, "I like your shirt!"  It turns out, he was also a former camp counselor and he was there with his fiancée, having lunch.  And they had met at the same camp!  Very cool.