What's Your "It's a Small World" Story?

[Bailey Guns]

A young couple recently moved into the house next door. They have a Rottweiler that got sick overnight and were at the vet's office. Aunt of the girl was over at the house checking on something this afternoon. I was in the back yard and she asked me if I'd seen anything out of the ordinary because the couple initially thought the dog had been poisoned (it wasn't...culprit was a rawhide chew).

So we started talking and she said she knew me from somewhere. I told her that wasn't likely since I'd just moved from Idaho...she had no connection to Idaho. She insisted she knew me and I started thinking she looked familiar, too. I jokingly said maybe I'd arrested her in the past if she was ever in the Denver area. She said she lived in the south JeffCo area. Then we started comparing notes a little more and turns out I arrested her former husband for beating her pretty badly and threatening to shoot her...would've been in the mid 90s. She said it was 94 so I figured she'd remember that more than I would. After we talked about it I remembered the incident quite well. Just as I got on scene dispatch told me he had a handgun and just ran out the back door. I unlocked the 870 and grabbed it as I got outta the car. About that time he came running around the side of the garage with the gun. I racked a round into the chamber when he was about 20 feet away and screamed at him to drop the gun. He never saw me until I challenged him...just stopped in his tracks.

Anyway, he didn't resist and I wound up taking him to jail.

She remarried some time after that and moved to OK. Now she's the mayor of a small, neighboring town.

Weird stuff.

Had another similar thing happen shortly after I moved to Idaho. I ran into the guy that drove from Cheyenne to Bailey to buy a Harley I was selling. He was riding thru on his way to Spokane and stopped in Lewiston for fuel and I just happened to run into him.

[Irving]

When I was in college I had been broken up with a long time girlfriend. My friends were trying to cheer me up and one of them brought a single lady (unbeknownst to me) from one of his classes to a poker party at our house. She knew one of my roommates from some time in their past and toward the end of the night they went into his room and they didn't come out for two days straight. I think they ended up getting married. It wasn't my small world, but I was there to witness it.

[Bailey Guns]

That's funny. When I was sent to Japan my "sponsor" (another airman assigned to meet you and show you around) was a guy that graduated from my high school in Casper the year before I did. We weren't really friends but knew each other from classes.

[cstone]

Our next door neighbor here in Baltimore grew up in Centennial and has lived here since 1987.

[copfish]

Wife and I were living in Woodland Park and walked to a new restaurant that opened next to the theater. Food smelled wonderful and there was a line but we got seated. The chef made his rounds and looked at me and hollered "Fish!" It was a buddy from high school (in Japan from the 70's) and we had not seen each other since high school... We always has a table and enjoyed many great meals and his company for years until he moved to Palisades and we moved down to Pueblo West. Here's another small world story from Teller county... I was cautioned about the Sheriff being difficult to work with and he was a grumpy old guy, hell of a cop but grumpy. He mentioned he knew a John Fisher back in New York. We got on okay, but he really didn't care for us staties. Mom and Dad flew over from Japan for our wedding back in '96 and my wife had taken my Mom and her family to Cripple Creek to check out the casinos and Dad and I drove separately as I needed to go by the Sheriff's Office and sign some papers. I thought I'd introduce Dad to the Sheriff and when we walked into the office, Frank jumped up and hollered "Fish!" (anyone seeing a pattern?) and embraced my Dad. Turns out they attended PS232 in Queens back in the dark ages... Wow, talk about a small world...

[theGinsue]

Up until I retired from the Air Force in '05, my life was a series of "It's A Small World" events - to the point that whenever we went anywhere my wife just waited for another to pop up. Since retiring, even though I travel more than I ever have before, the events are rare. Here are a couple of events that I experienced many years ago...

Before I joined the military I attended college for 2 years in a small Western, MO town. During the summer just prior to going to Basic Training, I had a roommate who was a frat boy (now a Chief of Police in one of the municipalities that make up St. Louis metro) and I got to meet several other members of his fraternity. Fast-forward 2 years and I'm sent to Phoenix for a training class. A few other members of my unit were with me and we decided to go to a local dance club one evening. I went to the bar for a drink and I recognized the bartender as one of those frat brothers. After a few minutes of catching up, we parted ways. Two years later my wife and I went to visit my grandmother in Olathe, KS. On our way back home we stopped at a K.C. Masterpiece restaurant for dinner. When our server walked up I recognized him as the very same "frat brother".

Another time. My first permanent duty assignment was at Scott AFB, IL. Like everyone in the military, I made several friends that moved on and I lost track of. After 3 years @ Scott, I was sent to Osan AB, Korea. In the afternoon of my first full day @ Osan I saw one of my top 5 military friends who'd left Scott more than a year before. He was riding a bike and it took me over 1/2 mile to catch him. Our friendship deepened during that tour, but after that year we eventually lost track of each other again (I was re-stationed at Scott and he went to Alaska). I had been stationed for my second tour at Scott AFB, IL for 6 years when I received my orders to come to Colorado Springs. I was told I needed to immediately get here to find a place to live as the Army was sending over 2k troops and their families here and their housing office was contracting every available rental in town. My wife and I had housing listings we were checking out when we saw a sign for an open-house from a realtor. We decided to check it out. I walked into this home (my eyes adjusting to coming in from the bright August sun) when someone yelled my name. It was that same friend, now a realtor in the Springs. He ultimately helped us to get a house built which I still live in. .....BUT........ We came back to the Springs a month later to find a temporary place to live until the house was completed. Back then Cub Foods had a $5 chicken meal that my wife and I bought and took to Palmer Park for a picnic. We were standing at the overlook when a couple came up near us. I checked them out and got in trouble with my wife for staring at the woman. I knew her. I starting talking with the couple and told the woman I knew her (which she said was impossible since she wasn't from the area). After questions back and forth I found out that I had met her in the Base Housing @ Scott - she was my next door neighbor's sister.

[zteknik]

I move out here from new York and realized I went to school with GilpinGuy. [Coffee]

[theGinsue]

I move out here from new York and realized I went to school with GilpinGuy. [Coffee]

Oh! I'm truly sorry. My prayers are with you.

(Just joking GilpinGuy)

[Bailey Guns]

We moved to Bailey in 1990. Our first summer there the neighbors across the road had a kind of block party/get to know your neighbor cookout. We'd been there for about an hour when my wife pointed at another lady and said, "She looks just like my roommate from Lakenheath." That would've been 81 - 82 time frame. The lady saw her gesture towards her as she was telling me this and screamed, "SHARON"! It was her. She was a friend of the neighbor having the party and lived in Littleton.

[FoxtArt]

My best one is the Wyoming Eclipse. I started out in the early AM, took my elderly dad up with me. IDK what the mileage was, probably ~300-350 miles one way. On some random road in the middle of nowhere (HWY 136 between Riverton and Casper, about 40 miles from any town I pulled off on a random dirt road. Drove maybe a couple miles down that and pulled off on a power line road. Got out, started walking around, and lo and behold, my dad heard a familiar voice call his name. In the middle of freaking nowhere. We walked over and it was his 1st cousin and family, they had traveled in from all over the country, we hadn't seen any of them in about a decade prior. No advance arrangement or planning, nobody else there (just all of us) it was a surreal family reunion. My brother and family also intentionally met up with us shortly after that. I don't think I'll be able to have a better small world moment in my life.

[Rucker61]

I was working in Spokane in the late 90s for a major computer company, as was my best friend. A woman who worked for me had lived in California prior to moving to Washington, and her best friend lived in Fort Collins. The friend had a daughter who was single, and the co-worker talked the daughter in to coming to Spokane to meet a nice guy that she worked with; said "nice guy" wasn't my friend or myself, as we were considered "too wild" to meet the daughter. The daughter road tripped up but we never met her, and there wasn't any connection with the nice guy. My buddy moved to Fort Collins two years later and managed to convice our co-worker to set them up. They dated until I moved to Fort Colliins, where I met her, convinced my buddy to date and old college flame and ended up marrying her. That was 20 years ago.

[JohnnyEgo]

Haha. Was a young enlisted man who got tired of living on the ship in Jacksonville, FL, so I moved to an apartment with my two best friends. There were some cute college girls living below us, one of whom also had Maryland plates. My buddy decided to make a move on the tall one, but failed to connect. I was out there wrenching on my car one day, and she came out and asked if I could move so she could back out her car. I said "I see you have Maryland plates. I'm from there, too." She asked me what city I lived in. I said the name of my relatively obscure hometown. She says "No way, I'm from that place, too." Turns out we went to high school together. She was one year older than me, and was in the high school orchestra with my younger sister for a year. I had a crush on her best friend for a while. We grew up in the same neighborhood about a mile apart. Never met each other. Now here we were, thousands of miles away, a lonely young sailor and a hot ballerina meeting as though fate ordained it. Fate told me I had to marry that girl.

But it turned out it wasn't really fate, it was raging hormones, and the life lesson I subsequently learned over the next five years was that ballerinas are crazy bitches. And also that it's a small, small world, I suppose.

[brutal]

One that immediately comes to mind was at my wife's work Christmas party last year.

Sitting at a table with some of her immediate coworkers and their mates, and one gal had her mother with her. We got to talking and find out they are from Wisconsin. Turns out she went to high school with my Mom.

[Great-Kazoo]

med cruise '74
Bird cage cva-59, 1st in defense. Last in port. Guy was having an issue with x. I was contacted and met the guy. Tells me his last name.
NY? yeah i'm from plainedge. Really, your brother tommy? I have a brotjher named tommy. He work at Mass General with Paulie and Tommie P? He did .. Yeah i worked with them guys. We'd leave work for a drink and say at the same time, the bar's name


Same ship. One of the guys working admin, i chat up for someone. Guy hung out with this guy, Freddie, i met in PR back in the early 70's, who lived next door to my aunt.





I i.d a girl up in wyo. 118-xx-xxxx first 3 of her soc on a wyo DL. You from NY or da island? Why? i recognize the ss number. Turns out I went to school with her sister, she graduated year before me. Also ran with my late best friends older brother and his crew.


Drinking at the bar in Virginia city MT, with my business partner. Bartender says those guys paying your drinks. Go over to say hi and thanks. Appreciate the beers. Do we know you. Rolls up his sleeve and his GF? slips her right shoulder sleeve off. Yeah you tattooed us at the denver M.C and swap meet in 93 and 94 . Then again in 96. We always had you tattoo us as part of our trip


Girl at the shop in ft collins is asking prices on different tattoos. Shoot her a $50 tag on some small off the wall flash, then she ask what my name was. . Clearly shes from scotland, exchange student. The usual banter, So how you happen to hear about us?
Well i was back home in scotland and saw this nice flower and birds on a girl's leg, at the town square fountain. Ask her if she mind me asking a few questions, since she was interested in getting one. American exchange students from..........................Ft Collins
With that she handed me my business card, they gave her. In scotland.


Guy comes in to the harley shop in englehood early 86. Clearly a meatball from NY. Typical, or should i say stereotype italian. Dress leather jacket, porkpie hat, blah, blah. Hey where the da fuck you from . he nuts up, throws his shoulder back and say....The island, why you have a problem?
No i think i know you. Yeah from where. These guys in suffolk cty, south shore . Yeah that's my guys. Turned out 2 more from the same area i knew were in CO. That was a bad year i picked, to stop drinking


I've had a few people who either were neighbors with my cousins, or hung out with them.

Honestly in the middle of nowhere there's at least 1 person who knows me or someone i know.

Last one (for now) Garage sale here in town, off the beaten path NAZ .
Looking at some items another guy is also looking at. You thinking of buying them?

Naw i'm just checking them out he says. BAM! another NYker. Say where you from in NY. They usual evasive answer. The island. North or south shore. South, Nassau or slofuck cty? Nassau.
What town. NO SHIT. He ask why. what street you live on? Really how close to the F.D? 2 houses down. You Know the (insert italian last name) ? Yeah why? You lived around the corner from my folks place. Which street & house? I tell him. Your dad is Jim? yeah he was, he passed a few years back. Too bad, I knew him from Pete & Lou's cleaners.

[WETWRKS]

About mid 90s I met a fellow with a very similar last name. Literally one letter off and mine is an uncommon spelling. He and I became good friends and the years went by. About 5 years back my family started doing genealogy and found that the family line had its US basis in a small particular county back East. I mentioned it to my friend only to find out that he knew his family originated from that same county. We still don’t know if we are truly related but cannot help but think we are. To coincidental to not be.

He passed away about 2 years ago. Cancer. He had been military. Specifically dealt with the man portable nukes. Can’t help but think they were responsible for it.

[Aloha_Shooter]

Around 2015, a guy I've worked with periodically since about 1994 got back from a family reunion in Hawaii and told me he'd found out we're distant cousins.

[Sawin]

I met a neighbor who lives a couple hundred yards away from me in Austin TX on a business trip.
One of my colleagues at Axcient lives in the neighborhood down the street from where I grew up between tiny White & Rydal, GA.

[hatidua]

By some pure coincidence I've been seated on three separate instances next to photographers I've known but not seen in years on transpacific flights from LAX to Denpasar. Not just on the same flight, sitting next to each other.

[crashdown]

Since I’ve been in Alaska I’ve had two sales appointments with families that moved here from Coal Creek Canyon (where I moved from). I didn’t know either personally, but we knew some of the same people and they both knew which house was mine in the canyon. Run into lots of people from Colorado here. Had a day a couple weeks ago where I ran two sales appointments with families from Fort Collins. It’s always a good conversation when they continue to use their 970 area code because the area code for Alaska is 907 and everyone assumes you messed up when you write down 970. We also use 7 digit dialing here, so that adds to the confusion even more.