By Steve Cichon | steve@buffalostories.com | @stevebuffalo
When you travel, there’s always a Buffalo connection; some reminder of home abroad. Whether you run into someone wearing a Bills hat in Mumbai or a hot dog cart selling Sahlen’s in Dallas, chance encounters with vestiges of home while on the road are really so commonplace, it’s almost to a point where they’re expected.
Those “six degrees of separation” stories are a little more unusual. On our most recent cruise, a woman who worked for a big national corporation wound up sitting next to the parents of a man who worked for the same company, only half way around the country. But a minute into the conversation, the woman realized she worked very closely with their son, and knew him quite well, if only over the phone and e-mail.
When stories like these would arise, I’d always tell the story of how Monica and I randomly ran into my friend, one time co-worker, and Channel 4 news anchor Jacquie Walker at Epcot Center. Neither of us knew the other would be in Orlando, over one thousand miles from the TV studios where we both worked. To think of how many cosmic events must have lined up to run into a fellow Buffalonian just outside the Hall of Presidents floors me every time I think of it.
Once in a lifetime occurrence, right? Well, not quite.
Fast forward about 12 years, and Monica and I are shivering our way through a hop-on/hop-off tour of the Canadian city of Halifax. It was the final port of call on the New England/Maritime Canada cruise we were taking in celebration of our tenth wedding anniversary.
As the classic double-decker London bus we were riding came up to a stop, I looked out the window to see a gentleman who looked very much like our neighbor David Lampe. A lot like David, in fact.
But truth be told, David is a retired English professor with a penchant for tweed caps. In other words, a historical tour of one of North America’s oldest cities is exactly the type of place one might expect to see a David look-a-like, if not multiple David looks-a-like.
So as the bus was coming to that stop, and as I was about to point out the David look-a-like to Monica, the woman next to the David look-a-like turns around to reveal herself as a Ruth Lampe look-a-like.
Quite flabbergasted, I very plainly said to Monica, “That’s Ruth and David Lampe,” as if I’d seen them on the yogurt aisle at Wegmans.
She saw immediately who I was pointing to, but despite my incredulous tone, thought I was playing a game we often play, pointing out people who remind us of other people.
It sounded nonsensical, seeing couple who live 2 blocks away back home, here in a different country and a different time zone, but there they were. “No, seriously, that’s David and Ruth.”
The next bus stop was actually around the corner, so we hurriedly hopped off, and had to run a bit to catch up with them.
Ruth and Dave were just as delighted and flabbergasted as we were.
Unbeknownst to us, while we had taken a Carnival cruise, they had taken a Princess cruise with a very similar itinerary.
We chatted for a few minutes, and then went our separate ways in Nova Scotia, although I think we were all a little stunned, and the whole conversation was every bit like we were on the produce aisle at Dash’s Market.
A few dozen times over the last few days of our vacation, Monica and I laughed and shook our head in disbelief, running into our friends and neighbors so far from home; and thinking about how it was amazing that this had happened to us twice.
See you in Sheboygan?
