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MY DEAR READER, I AM SO FOND OF little quirks of fate--they're just downright fascinating to dwell upon. Tell me about a coincidence and I'm promptly intrigued.

(After those first two lines, I paused as I began this posting yesterday, and that's as far as I got with the tale I'm about to tell you......And then today, before I had time to actually write up the story, I got a comment on my previous post [you know, the one about the shoes] and it began with these words:
"What a coincidence!"

[Insert a pause] Wow! [Insert a gleeful giggle] Wouldn't you say that's one coincidence within another?!)

The thing about flukes is one never expects them! Aha, I am taken by the unlikely chance, the odd surprise of the thing! So, of course I must share it--this coincidence that I stumbled upon yesterday:

My yard man and I have new neighbors; the couple and their two young sons moved in about a half-year ago. But it wasn't until recently we had the opportunity to visit with them. They are quite friendly and promptly said, You'll have to come see our house! They'd spent much time building their unique and beautiful home with lots of 'green' features. We were eager to see it.

Yesterday afternoon is when we stopped in for a tour of the house. The husband had clearly been very involved in designing and building the house and he enthusiastically chatted about the process as he took us from room to room (while I enthusiastically took in the details). It was easy to see why he would be proud of the place--the wood, the stone, the great open spaces and tall windows to the south--(I tried not to utter superlatives too often).

(Are you clearing your throat, Dear Reader? Drumming your fingers and mouthing the word: Coincidence? Okay, okay, I'm getting to that...) As Adam was telling us how he and his wife enjoy sailing, I mentioned that I had grown up beside a river. "Oh, where was that?" he asked. And I had responded, "Southern Virginia."

Well, ha, whaddaya know, it turns out his wife's parents had grown up right there... in the very same city! When we came back downstairs after taking in the scenic view from the upstairs windows and walking through the walk-through closet (I'll take one of those!), we talked to his wife.

"Oh, did you go to Warwick High, too?" she asked me. "My parents call it War'ick High."

"Yeah, that's how we say it down there," I laughed. "I didn't go to Warwick; they built a new high school closer to where I lived, but my older sister went there. What class were your parents in?"

When I got home, first thing I called my sister, "Did you know them?" I asked, "They were a year ahead of you--class of '59!"

Well, of course she did--when I mentioned their names on the phone--right off the bat, she remembered them--fifty-two years later! (How impressive is that?) "They were popular kids!" she said.

But she hadn't known that these two--named 'Best All Around' by their senior classmates-- had gone on to marry each other! Nor did she know about this daughter of theirs.




"How in the world do you know about Jimmy and Beth?" she asked me.




"Well," I said, "it's quite a coincidence...."

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