Ol’ Walt was correct when he said, “It’s a small world after all.” Of course, if you have ever been to the park and ridden the ride, you know it is more about entertainment than real life. However, in my many years on this beautiful globe I have found Mr. D to be correct over and over.
My favorite small world story happened right after Twila and I moved back to her hometown, Benton, Kentucky to run a few newspapers in that part of the state. Shortly after arriving my bosses shipped me off to Washington, DC for a couple of weeks of meetings and training sessions. On my way back home I was sitting in a relatively full airplane flying back into Nashville. No doubt I was reading a book, as I usually am, when the fellow next to me struck up a conversation.
Somehow our discussion turned from travel to work and he found out I was in the newspaper business and I found out he ran a trucking company. At the time, our newspaper printed for a lot of other businesses and I asked some shipping questions. Finally he asked, “Where is your newspaper?” I told him we were in Benton, Kentucky. He started laughing. He was the manager of one of the trucking companies in the same community. Over the years we actually did some business with him. What were the chances we would be sitting together on a jet coming out of Washington heading to Nashville?!
For over 30 years that has been my best personal small world story… until recently. My 50th high school class reunion is this summer. Don’t do the math… your calculator does not have that many zeros on it. Anyway, a girl I knew all through high school and graduated with is helping put the reunion together. We were chatting about the event in emails and she asked which elementary school I attended. Well, I happened to arrive in Bowling Green from Mississippi about the time some new schools were being built and my first half-year… second grade… was spent at Potter Gray before I was moved to McNeil and then Dishman-McGinnis. Come to find out, we were in the same second-grade class at Potter Gray about 60 years ago and never knew it. How we went through four years of high school together and that didn’t come up I’ll never understand, but what a wonderful small world surprise it was to realize we probably talked to each other in second grade and then didn’t see each other again until high school and then didn’t chat again until 50 years later.
Sadly, I will be on a ranch and a beach in Texas with a camera in my hands during the reunion and I’ll miss all my friends from high school as they celebrate graduating in 1973 and spending some time remembering all the folks who are no longer with us. Not everyone has a great time in high school, but I was so blessed with great friends, incredible teachers – many of whom made a difference in my future, and fun experiences that have lasted a lifetime. Twila still laughs when I tell her about things that happened in high school. Even though I can’t be there in person, I will be there in Purple Spirit… because once a Purple… always a Purple! It is a small world after all! Happy 50th reunion, my friends.
