It's so Cliche, BUT...

It really is a small world or at least a small country since I haven’t really seen all that much of the world. I know that I have shared other experiences in this vein but this is the most incredible story.

In this small world is the small town of Demopolis Alabama on the Tenn Tom Waterway. We don’t particularly care for it here and had not intended to be here longer than a fuel stop and overnight dockage but the weather (don’t worry I’m not going to wine about that again) caused us to remain a day longer than we anticipated. More for entertainment than any real need we borrowed the courtesy car for a run to the grocery store which is on the northern edge of town. Since the marina is on the southern edge of town we had to travel through the “downtown” area and that is when I noticed, in the window of a cute little shop, some Christmas ornaments. Of course we had to stop.

As we entered the store a clerk asked if she could help us and I replied that we just wanted to check out the ornaments. She then inquired where we were from, our accent (or lack of one) was probably her first clue, and then again it's likely she knows everyone in town. We never know how to answer that question because we are no longer from any particular place; however, recognizing that others want to know where visitors to their town hail from we often say St. Louis; which is what we said yesterday. The clerk smiled and said “I used to live in St. Louis, well St. Charles really”. Naturally I replied that I had grown up in St. Charles. The usual kind of conversation ensued.

Clerk: “Where did you go to school”?
Me: “I went to a small little country high school at Orchard Farm.”
Clerk: “I went to school there!”

This was just too surprising because I grew up in a rural area North of the town of St. Charles which was then a fairly small town itself. I think my graduating class (of about 40 or so) was the first class to spend all fours years at and graduate from O.F.H.S.. Prior to about 1962 high school students were bussed to the town of St. Charles because there were too few of them to warrant a high school (there were only 3 scattered elementary schools each with about 4 rooms). Talk about small! Then came the amazing part.

Suspecting that she was younger than I am I asked what year she graduated and we determined that she must have been a freshman back when I was a senior. As we were chatting about what a coincidence our meeting was the clerk said: “I was there when they did the play The Sound of Music”. “OMG, I was in that play, I was the crabby nun” and she replied, “I sang in the back-up chorus”.

As I said it was a small school and I grew up there and had no recognition at all of this person which surprised me a little. When we asked where she lived she said her parents lived in a trailer court; then we mostly knew that she lived right on highway 94 just outside of town. A little more conversation and we were able to determine which of the 2 trailer courts she had lived in (Princess Jodi, for those of you who remember). We tried to see if we had any mutual acquaintances but nothing clicked there. It might be important to note that at this point in the conversation none of us had introduced ourselves. Then she said, “people had unusual names up there” and I replied that there is a lot of German heritage so that might be why they sounded strange to her.

“Well”, she said, “I remember one name was Valentine”! Unbelievable! Larry said that his name was Valentine.

Clerk: “Where did you live?”
Larry: “You know that subdivision that was across the highway from the gas station and about a block down, I lived in the only two-story house in that subdivision”.
Clerk: “I’ve been to your house!”

Oh My God! She couldn’t remember why she was at his house, just that she had gone there with several other girls who lived in the trailer court; perhaps to visit some of his younger sisters/brothers.

The strangeness continues because we learned that Ann (by now we are on a first name basis) only lived there for two years before returning to Demopolis. And Larry’s family only lived there for two years before they returned to Texas. We aren’t sure if it was the same years but there was obviously some correlation in the time.

What are the odds that we would ever encounter this person? Even if we both stilled lived in the area I would think the chances would be slim and here we are many miles away.

So here’s to a really small world; and to Ann Jones, from Demopolis and Larry & Theresa Valentine also from Demopolis, at least for today.