Friday, August 1, 2008

THE END OF EXILE, AND THAT "S" WORD, AGAIN












My time in Dallas is drawing to a close. After the first few days of trauma, things settled down into a routine and went fairly smoothly. I feel bad that Carolyn and Mom must now go into exile themselves, staying at someone else's house for two or three weeks. But not bad enough to stay.

And now, I'm afraid, I must use my favorite word, "synchronicity," once again. Remember when my travel story appeared in the Austin American Statesman in June? The photo that was featured showed some very distinctive rock formations in Thailand. A woman who was reading the paper, while visiting her father-in-law in Johnson City, saw that photo and thought it looked familiar. She and her family had lived in SE Asia before, and it looked like a place they had vacationed. She proceeded to read the story, and then it hit her. "Oh my gosh, I think I know these people!" After she returned to Houston the next week, she decided to visit the blog address that had been included in my bio. She left a comment under my entry about that particular story getting published. Unfortunately, I had written several more entries on the blog since then, and I don't usually check for new comments except on the most recent entries. A day or two later, for some unknown reason, I was scrolling quickly down through the blog, when something made me stop and stare at that entry. I found myself thinking "Wait a minute. Was that comment there before?" I decided to open it and check. Because I did, we ended up having a grand reunion brunch in Blanco a short time later, with Bob Weirich and his lovely wife Pat - John's boss during our first stay in Indonesia, 33 years ago! So, how's that for synchronicity?

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