Small World Happenings

My brother-in-law called me this week. Technically, he's James' brother-in-law, since he's married to James' sister. Anyway, I don't believe he's ever called me before in the 34+ years we've known one another. By way of background, his hometown is Milledgeville, Georgia, about 120 miles from Cobb County where I've lived virtually all my life, and where he has called home for over 30 years. His family still lives in Milledgeville. He called to say that he'd visited a dermatologist in Milledgeville because he could get an appointment much more quickly there than he could closer to home. As the appointment was concluding he mentioned that he thought Milledgeville had gotten a lot more rain than he'd had at home. When the doctor inquired where "home" was, one thing led to another until pretty soon he learned that his appointment was with a high school friend of mine, one with whom I am still in infrequent touch. If I was considered smart in high school, then she was off-the-chart-smart. She went on to college and then medical school, and has practiced dermatology in Millegeville for many years now. We're all still in the state of Georgia, but still, Small World!

My college-aged niece, who lives near Columbia, South Carolina, is studying in the Dominican Republic this semester. Since she's a tall, slim, blue-eyed blond, you can imagine that she attracts a lot of attention wherever she goes in the Dominican. As she was running (presumably for exercise) one day, a gringo driver who was stopped at a stop sign rolled down his car window and asked her where she was from. (Kristina, if you read this blog post, the previous sentence is an example of when it would be thoroughly awkward to NOT end a sentence with a preposition -- since we just discussed this a few days ago.) Turns out that he was also from the U.S.A., more specifically, Columbia, South Carolina. Now that really was a small world happening!