My wife and I made friends with a very warm, intelligent couple and visited with them frequently over a period eight years. Although she was from the Lousiana coastal zone, and my wife was born in Minnesota, it turned out hat, being both born to military families, they had both traveled around quite a bit--in fact they had both lived in New Jersey, although not in the same town.

One day, one of them was talking about her childhood accordion lessons, and l o, it turned out they had both played accordion when in grade school.

At a later visit, one of them said, "My accordion teacher was a strange man."

"So was mine".

"Mine disappeared suddenly without a trace."

"So did mine!!!!!"

It turns out they had both been taking accordion lessons from the same man, as one of them lived at the southernmost town in his territory and the other in the northernmost; and that he had left both of them (and all his other students) in the lurch when he vanished suddenly one day back in the late 50's.

And we met thousands of miles and adventures distant in San Diego, and were friends for years before they discovered this common experience.

Small world, ain't it?


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