2026 January 28: He said the music world is a very small world and we proved it

 Mother and I are in New Orleans for a four-day event at the National World War II Museum called “Experience the Victory.” It’s an amazing four days filled with private guided small-group tours of the exhibits, a welcome reception and farewell dinner, a look at some artifacts that are in the vault and not on display, and more. It’s the last day and we are at a buffet lunch that precedes a special musical stage show of music from the WWII era. We are seated across the table from SR that we had spoken with just once before. Now’s our chance to really get to have conversation. He’s a violin player and was in the U.S. Army Band (he also played clarinet when strings weren’t appropriate). He was involved in some of the sub-groups of the Army Band as well and after retirement, was a manager that arranged musical groups to perform for private and corporate functions.

At one point, I tell my story [insert the details of another 5-degree story here and hyperlink] of attending a performance of a U.S. military band at University of North Texas when I was in graduate school. (The bands love to play at UNT, which has a nationally-recognized school of music and is a great recruiting grounds for future band members.) “And as I was looking through the program, I read through the names of all the band members and recognize BB’s name on trombone. BB was an amazing trombone player in my high school band 25 years earlier.” SR patiently lets me finish my story and then says, “I know BB. We weren’t in the band at the same time but I called on him often when I was arranging musicians for private performances.” I then told the part of the story where I send the program to KMO who has two friends in the Army band and she sends them BB’s high school yearbook photo (which they pass around to band members, much to BB’s chagrin). So I text KMO to ask the names of her friends that she knew from a church’s flute choir. I tried to read the names to SR but butcher them. No worries, he kindly corrects my pronunciation because he knows both of them. One of them played in quartets with him.

SR had said that the music world is a very small world and I guess we proved it over lunch and a show.

2025, December 30: I don’t even contradance but these two do

I was in Dallas visiting my friend MW and happened to meet one of her nieces visiting from Houston. We were chatting about school and careers and life when I asked her about her t-shirt that said Pinewood 100 on it. She said it was a dance camp in Massachusetts that she went to for a week last summer. I asked what kind of dance they did there and she said folk dance, contra dance, and others. I said, "Contra dancing? That's really popular in New England. My friend MB in Maine loves contra dancing." She looked at me and contemplated for a moment and then said, “MB?" Yep, CW from Houston has a new friend from Pinewood: my colleague and friend MB in Maine, and we discovered the connection while randomly in Dallas at the same time. (And yes, it’s the same MB from 2009, July 27 “The Miracle of the Moving Boxes.”)

2024, April 24: On a cruise this time

 On a cruise with my mom around Japan, one afternoon, we headed to trivia. We never miss trivia. We were going to meet up with our friends J and D so we were looking for an empty spot that would hold four. I looked in our usual corner across the room, but there was a man sitting there with three empty chairs so I knew that spot was taken. Before I could avert my eyes, he caught my glance and opened his arms inviting us to join him. I quickly looked away pretending I didn’t see him and continued to scan the room. I reached a point in my scanning, however, where I was either going to have to do a 360 or look across his corner of the room again. I tried to look quickly past him but he saw me and sent the silent invitation again. Mother and I then walked toward him to explain we had a team of four already and were just waiting for our partners to arrive. “No trouble,” he said. “It’s just my wife and me. We would make six (the maximum team size). And so we joined him. Not too long after, his wife joined us and we were chatting before the game began. They’re from Tennessee and they love trivia, especially music trivia, which is not our forte at all. They’re not going on the second half of the cruise and are leaving the next day. She’s a retired nurse, but he’s still working as an engineer and doesn’t retire until June 1. And somewhere in that conversation it came up that she lived in Dallas for a while.

“Did you go to high school in Dallas?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

Hillcrest.

“I almost went to Hillcrest. I went to Franklin Junior High but we moved before I went to Hillcrest.”

“My brother went to Franklin. Where did you go?”

“We moved to Richardson and I went to Pearce.”

“My brother went to Pearce.”

“When did he graduate?”

They had to do a little math…he’s six years younger than she, she graduated in 1974,…

I interrupted, “You graduated in 1974? So did I!” I knew I wouldn’t know her little brother but what a fun coincidence that thousands of miles away, 50 years later, we run into each other. 

Unfortunately, I could only think of two people’s names that I knew would’ve been at Hillcrest and they didn’t ring any bells with her. That would’ve been even wilder. 

We did fairly well at trivia together. Our friends never showed up so we had two extra chairs the whole time. And then they were gone. 

2023, October 9: Welcome, Newcomer! ... the Double Whammy

 I was visiting Mama Z "on her cruise ship." That's how my mom describes the senior living community where Mama Z lives. There are over 1500 units--so it's BIG--and the amenities are numerous and luxurious. On Monday night, she has a group of friends that she always eats with. Typically, it's a table of four, but on this night, they had reserved a table of six because there were some new residents they wanted to get to know. Mama Z was hoping only one new resident would come and she could sneak me in, but both newcomers had already confirmed, so Mama Z and I got a table for two. Well, we might not get to eat with her friends, but I could at least meet them, so she took me to the table and started introducing me. 

The first woman she introduced, I recognized because I had met her on previous visits to Mama Z's. (Thank goodness that the name tags all residents wear are big enough and use a bold enough font that makes them easily read from afar.) We are going around the table, I'm catching some names, I can't hear others, and we get to the last woman and I'm looking at her name tag. "JW?!" I scream. "What'd you say your name was, Honey?" she asks. "Theresa Overall," I say. And as we hug the others at the table are confused and laughing. "Where do you know each other from?" they ask. "Girl Scouts!" I say. JW looks at me oddly. "No. Not Girls Scouts," she says. "Insurance?" she says in the form of a question. "No. Not insurance," I say. And so we stare at each other. Fortunately, after about 30 seconds, it comes to me. "Fretz Park ceramics! Summer 1979. I used to babysit your son!" We then took a selfie and sent it to her son with the message, "Guess who." 

Mama Z and I sat down and started to decide what to order when a woman comes towards our table on an electric scooter and needed to get around me. As I scooted my chair, I read her nametag: SJM. I called out her name and then explained, "Theresa Overall. Girl Scouts from a long time ago." She was my trainer in a "Train the Trainer" session in Tejas Council. I don't think she recognized me, but she confirmed that she's the SJM actively involved in Girl Scouts for the last 40 years.

2022, May 26: Who loves a solicitation call?

 Two things I love: My little house in Richardson that I owned for 33 years and The Lamplighter School. Today, I received a fundraising campaign call from The Lamplighter School's advancement office. I sometimes forget but I really do love to continue giving every year to The Lamplighter School. CC introduced herself (she wasn't working at Lamplighter when I was there) and told me right up front, we had a very dear friend in common: MS. She had worked at a major non-profit with MS for many years. They both got laid off on the same day as part of a poorly designed "restructuring." MS is a dear friend from church that rented my cute little house the first 9 years I lived in Maine (and I sold the house immediately after she moved to another state...she spoiled me as a landlady, she was such a great tenant). CC had spent time with MS in my house and so she knew my name from MS. Then she got the job at Lamplighter and there was my name again. Even after my being gone so many years, she said my name comes up in conversation or she'll see it in print and she always thinks, "Ah, MS's friend."

I wonder what degree of me it is when someone knows my old house as well as me?

2022, Jan 2: We go way back

CL posted a "Happy Birthday" wish on ML's newsfeed. How do these two know each other? CL is a UMF graduate who is now a social studies teacher in Maine. ML is the son of my sister's friend Big ML--they were stationed in Orlando together in the 1980's. Big ML became a family friend and we stayed in touch through my sister. I knew that over time, ML got married, retired from the Navy, moved to Maine, had children. When I moved to Maine, I got in touch with ML through Facebook. In 2009 or so, I participated in a 2-day conference in Big ML's town and stayed at his family's home and got to know Big ML's wife, daughter, and ML. I became Facebook friends with the whole family. For 10 years, I've watched ML and his sister grow up, go to college, and become cool adults. Today I found out that cool adult ML knows cool social studies teacher CL--they went to high school together and are best buds.

2021, August 22: Morocco? Really?

UMF grad, JD, got a new job at BA. I made a comment: So you get to work with PR?! What a killer combination!

JD: Yes, I do! I’m very excited school to start up. And you may get to work with my wife KEB because she will be teaching business at UMF in the Spring! 

 

I get a friend request from KEB. As always, I double check it's the real person by looking at their friends. We have 3 mutual friends. Three? Really?? 

 

I message KEB:  So nice to meet you. I look forward to meeting you in person at UMF. When I looked at your profile to accept your FB friend request it said we had 3 mutual friends. I knew JD would be one. I wasn’t surprised when I saw LB [a professor at UMF]. But I was blown away when I saw EE! How do you know EE? I was one of her 4th grade teachers in Dallas, Texas! What a small world!

 

KEB: Hi Theresa! So nice to meet you too. JD said amazing things about you and I can’t wait to meet you in person. I met EE at a global conference (World Merit) in Morocco. She was one of the speakers/trainers. She was incredibly inspiring. The world is absolutely small!

 

TLO: I love the EE story. She was an amazing and inspiring young woman even in 4th grade. I've loved following her journey since then on FB. It's cracking me up that this particular small world story is so global that you two met on a different continent! What led you to a global conference in Morocco?

 

KEB: That's amazing! I've always volunteered with social action projects in Morocco. I was involved with a few international organizations, and I have organized global events. My interest in SDGs led me to that specific conference where I met EE and so many amazing people from around the world!