There were other titles that came to mind for this Hub: Jumping Through Hoops, for one; The Power of Persistence, for another. In the end, though, Unexpected Connections won out. And why not? Many of us--if not all--have seen such connections manifest in our lives. Certainly, my wife and I have seen some pretty magical hookups take place at the most surprising times. That got us to thinking about other, similar events....

Example: Although well known personalities should never be too startled at hearing from their fan bases, entrepeneur Henry Ford had to be at least a little bit goggle-eyed upon receiving an admiring letter from Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde fame/notoriety) stating that he (Clyde) highly preferred the fast and powerful Ford V-8 as a getaway car. Not that the Bonnie and Clyde story was anything but a sequence of surprises...at least to those of us fortunate enough to have avoided living through the Great Depression.

Example: One meeting that could not have been predicted.... Shortly prior to the bombing at Pearl Harbor, an old maid school marm taught high school English in the small town of Silverton, Oregon. Largely insulated from direct effects of the Depression, she had a father who was a college professor with tenure at the University of Oregon, a Master's Degree in English from Peabody in Nashville, and a total lack of experience with the opposite sex. She was, however, a superb teacher with strong opinions and a gift for her chosen profession. She was 29 years of age.

Enter a 20 year old male student.

Huh?

No, that's not a typo, and it's not fiction. Her older-than-usual student had grown up hard and fast, eldest child of eight, doing everything he could to help his family survive. He'd run away from home (with pretty good cause), worked in a variety of hard-muscled professions, been reunited with siblings and parents...and returned to school in an attempt to get his high school degree. That World War II interrupted his formal education could not have been predicted, nor could anyone have foresen what would come to pass between teacher and student.

Lest the reader think, Oh, that could happen any time, let me put it this way: If you are an unmarried female school teacher looking for a husband, do you think a good plan would be, Ah, I'll just wait for an overaged, rowdy kind of student to show up, and then I'll marry him?

Well.... It did work for Mary Kay Letourneau, in the end, but few ladies of my acquaintance would care to pay the price she paid....

Back to the Silverton, Oregon, story: Teacher and student were actually married before the young man shipped out with the Navy during World War II and remained married for more than 52 years until his death in 1997. Yes, they disagreed at times, enough so that having a copper engraving hanging on a kitchen wall was a good thing. (Copper is belived to give off a "glowing warmth" that can help keep family tensions down.) But they endured, living long and highly successful lives as a couple for five decades plus.

Oh, how is it that I know all these details about the "Silverton Story"? Um, simple enough...those two remarkable individuals were my parents. But what about the larger scene, like, say, oh...world wide? Sure. Absolutely.

Example: In early 1964, a young Montana cowboy was drafted into the U.S. Army. This was, of course, prior to the draft lottery, let alone the all volunteer Army. His story struck me, one of his closest friends, and now (44 years later) seems worth putting into print. Actually, more than that: It provided the initial inspiration for this entire Hub.

This soldier did well during Basic Training, but in his second eight weeks of training as a lineman or "wire rat", he contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized for a week. Once released from the hospital, he was promptly told he'd been reassigned to a different unit so that he didn't have to try to make up for missing a week of intense pole climbing, cryptography, and physical conditioning. He thus lost contact with every soldier he'd known up to that date. Still, he made new friends in the new class, graduated, and was shipped to an artillery headquarters unit in Germany as a full fledged lineman.

The new wireman walked into his new Kaserne (a "loan word" from German meaning "barracks" but actually applied to an entire American Army post) with the expectation of finding total strangers. To his surprise and delight, a number of his old training partners from Montana were already there! The Army had not changed his assignment when they'd changed his training class!

Oh, but that should not really have been all that surprising, you say? Well, no, really it shouldn't. Pleasant, but not astounding. But wait. There is more.

On that first day, as on on every other day for the next eighteen months, lunch time rolled around. With the others, the newly assigned PFC marched a quarter mile to the mess hall. Just inside the door, a Sergeant checked off each soldier arriving for chow. That was the Unexpected Connection: The Sergeant was an old rodeo buddy from Missoula, Montana. He and my friend had hung out together at a District High School Rodeo in Hamilton, Montana, in 1961. There they had done rowdy cowboy stuff together, not drinking, but chasing local girls--even riding in a local girl's car, crowding the four girls already therein until another car filled with seven town boys showed up.

At that point, the two rough stock riders had decided discretion was the better part of valor and scooted before having to prove their manhood the hard way, but they hadn't exactly stopped there. Instead, they'd attended the rodeo dance later in the evening, a dance at which they turned out to be the only two cowboys showing up to flash their smiles and scoot their boots. No dates as a result, but a definite bond between the two young men.

They'd lost contact, not seen each other for three years, and here they were face to face, halfway around the world. To this day, that cowboy tells the story, finishing with a question: If the world is that small, how on our tiny Earth do fugitives ever manage to believe they can hide out from their pursuers indefinitely?

The stress would be unbelievable.... Sounds like an incentive to live life with honor and dignity, doesn't it?

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32