Yep, another Sondy Tale and a little more. SMALL WORLD By Wilton Strickland
(The following tales of some unexpected, chance meetings illustrate what a really "small" world we occupy. Though these meetings occurred much more recently, surprisingly, they relate directly back to my time as a teenager.) On the Sunday morning after Christmas, 1978, while I was Director of Engineering at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, I had slept late, so I was the first to enter the dining hall when it opened for lunch at 1100. I was taking a seat at my table when I noticed a young man of about 34, a master sergeant whom I had met briefly when he arrived from the States the afternoon before, go through the cafeteria line. I asked him and some others to join me, and in a few minutes, there were six or eight at my table enjoying a rousing conversation. The subject of Christmas came up, of course, and the newly-arrived sergeant commented that he always gets a little depressed at Christmas. Somebody asked him why, and the sergeant replied that his father had been killed in a plane crash in his family's back yard on Christmas morning when he was a little boy. This jogged my memory of a similar case near my home when I was 14. I thought I had noticed a bit of North Carolina accent in the sergeant's speech, and I asked him, "Where's home, where are you from originally?" He replied, "North Carolina." I said, "Yes, I thought so. Me, too. Where in NC?" "Rocky Mount," he replied. I exclaimed, "I'm from Nashville!" (Ten miles west of Rocky Mount.) Then he replied, "Well, I'm really from Battleboro." (A small village immediately north of Rocky Mount.) In amazement, I responded, "Oh, Gosh! I remember the morning your father was killed. It was Christmas morning, 1948. You were four years old. You and your mother were standing in your back yard watching as your father and his friend showed-off the friend's new airplane by doing a little stunt-flying over your home. Your father was a passenger in the aircraft flown by a local rich boy who had wrecked several new cars his dad had given him, and on this particular morning, you and your mother watched as he crashed his new airplane in your back yard, killing himself and your father. I remember it as if it were yesterday, yet, here we sit, finally meeting thirty years later in Greenland!" It is, indeed, a small world, isn't it? Another small-world indicator: Several years ago, I arrived at a house here in Goldsboro to do a home inspection for a client who was buying the house. I approached a man in the garage of the empty house who identified himself as the seller, Lucian Vick. I introduced myself and began the inspection there in the garage. For several years, I had occasionally heard the name, Lucian Vick, around town, and it always sounded vaguely familiar, somehow, as it did this day. A few minutes after I started the inspection, I asked Mr. Vick, "By the way, Lucian, where are you from originally?" He responded, "Nashville." I suddenly realized why the name had seemed familiar; I turned quickly to him and exclaimed, "I'm from Nashville, too! You're the little three or four-year-old boy who was playing around us and under the table the summer of 1956 while I was tutoring your brother, Johnny, in calculus and analytical geometry! Your father had hired me to help Johnny with a correspondence course from NC State College that summer." Another one: In early 2004, a Rotary Club friend of my wife, Alice, was visiting our home in Goldsboro for a few minutes. During our conversation, I asked him, "By the way, Frank, where are you from originally?" He told me, then added, "My dad was from Whitakers, in Nash County; my mom is from Nashville." I replied, "We're from Nashville, too! What's her name?" "Anne Myrick," he answered. I exclaimed, "She's the pretty, sweet little 3 or 4-year-old daughter of the Stedman's Grocery Store manager in Nashville in the early to mid-50's. Many days at about closing time while I was working there, she and her mom would arrive to give her dad a ride home. Anne would come running into the store, give me a hug and pull at me to play with her. I would often lift her and set her on the edge of a sales counter and talk to her and play little child games with her while her dad completed the day's tally at the cash register and her mom beamed with pride nearby. I've often wondered what had happened to her over the last 50+ years." And another one: Several years ago, while I was in a family waiting room at the local hospital awaiting news from the surgeon who was doing cancer-related surgery on Alice, the hospital chaplain, Richard Hunt, came in to wait with me. We had visited briefly with Richard and his wife several times at Community Arts Council functions, where Alice had been Executive Director for many years. Sometime during our wait at the hospital, Richard asked me were I was from. I replied that Alice and I grew up at Nashville, NC, 50 miles or so north of here. Richard then told me that his grandfather used to be pastor of two small Baptist churches near Nashville in the early to mid-50's. I asked, "What was his name?" "Julian King," he replied. I quickly exclaimed, "He was pastor of my church and that of Alice's family a few miles away! I knew your mother there!" Wonder how many and how often we cross such interesting paths and never know it. Because of this, I'm more likely now to ask a new acquaintance, "Where are you from originally?" It's amazing how many "strangers" are not so really "strange," after all, especially for one who has lived in many different places.
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