Small World Stories

[rickb]

I thought I'd start a thread asking if anyone else has any "small world stories" associated with the AT.

I had a fun one yesterday.

My wife and I went to one of our favorite restaurants in a neighboring town and sat at our usual place at the bar. As usual we looked at the he chalkboard listing the current selection of craft beers and as usual asked the bar tender to describe a few beyond their listed price and alcohol contents.

The one I asked about was beer called Myron's Walk and as expected I got knowledgable review-- including that it was a collaboration between CO and ME breweries.

I had never heard of the beer before but asked the bartender if he knew how the beer go its name. He said he did not, so I shared that it may well have inspired by one of the founders of the AT (Myron Avery was also the first 2000 miler).

To that, the bartender said he should have known that, because he had thru hiked the AT a couple years ago, and I introduced myself and Jen and we had a nice conversation.

The Myron's Walk was pretty good.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/127723/?ba=AgentMunky

How cool is that.

Anyone else have any "Small World" stories associate with the AT? I have others, but they have been told many times before, and it's nice to have a new one. How about yours?

[Damn Yankee]

Mine isn't related to the AT but feel it fits the "Small World" category. I was born and raised in Swansea, Massachusetts and had some neighbor girls my age. We played together and went to the same school for around six years until they moved away.(this was in the mid to late 60's)maybe early 70's. I never saw them again. I moved to Virginia in 2001 and re-enlisted in the VANG and in 2008 was called up for deployment. While going through some pre-deployment stuff at Ft. Pickett I went to one of the many paperwork stations and the E-7 sitting there asked me what part of MA. I was from and told her that I was born and raised in Swansea and in reply, she said her too. So then she asked where in Swansea? So, I told her and again she replied, me too. You can probably see where this is going. Turns out 45 years later I met my neighbor girl in VA. in which she was also a member of the VANG. "Small World"

[MuddyWaters]

Not AT, but I met two young college age girls backpacking on the JMT. They were from Houston. I worked much of last yr and the spring over there, so I asked what part, they said Clear Lake. I said my daughter had a teammate and good friend from there on here college softball team, turns out they knew her friend, went to same High School.

Also not AT, but when I was in college many yrs ago, I had a lab partner and we started talking . I found out she was from the town I was born in. Turned out her grandmother lived across the street from my grandmothers house (where we lived for several yrs), and we used play together when we were little and she was visiting her grandmother.

[Siarl]

At 18 years of age, I left the only home I had ever known in the Appalachians of VA and I went to live in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I was there to serve my mission for the LDS Church. It was for two years. There was a group of us that arrived at the same time. After two years, our time was up and we left to go home and continue our lives where we had left off. I then joined the US Air Force. After serving five years I decided not to re-up and settled in San Francisco. Seven years later, I was living with two other roommates on Guerrero St and my roommates were having a yard sale. I worked nights and went to school during the day. My roommates worked during the day. So, I'm at home asleep when I hear the door bell ring. I could see two people at the door through the curtain but I couldn't make out who it was. So I asked what they wanted. They said they were there to drop off items for my roommates yard sale. I opened the door and there stood one of the missionaries that I had served with in Honduras. Last time I saw them was when we arrived at the port of entry in New Orleans seven years earlier. I had taken my flight to VA and she had taken her flight to CA.

[jefals]

Wow, those are great stories! Mine aren't that good, but here goes...
I grew up in a house in Birmingham, AL and in the garage there was a "square" of several rows of bottle caps -- Coca Cola, Yahoo, Orange Crush, etc... Dad was a traveling salesman, and one day he was in a restaurant in some little town, somewhere in Alabama, struck up a conversation with the guy at the next table, and he wound up being the original owner of our house and the guy that had nailed up those bottle caps!

You probably won't believe this one; My wife (deceased since 03) told me this one. She was swimming off the Florida coast somewhere and lost her keys in the water...(I know, I know, "WHAT was she doing with her keys, swimming in the ocean, right?) Anyway, she had a tag on em with her name and number, and somebody actually found them and returned them.... (We're talking about a set of keys at the bottom of the ocean, folks!) Well, okay the "bottom of the ocean" was probably shallow water just off the beach outside a hotel -- maybe this isn't such a big deal afterall! :)

[cthomasy]

Last spring my dad, sister and I were doing the GSMNP section of the AT and we passed a hiker going south bound. So we started talking and it turned out the his nephew lived in our neighborhood!

[Mrs Baggins]

We were sitting in the back garden of a pub in the Grassmarket district of Edinburgh in 2008. Several people had gathered there to wait on that night's "literary pub crawl." There were a few other Americans so of course "Where are you from?" was asked. Turned out one lady was from the same tiny town in northeastern California where I had gone to elementary school in the early 60's, and she knew some of the same people that I had known. She actually started out saying "little town in California, no one's ever heard of it." :)

In 2000 we had come to Frederick MD to spend a day checking out neighborhoods before hiring a real estate agent to find us a house. Went into a little coffee place for a break and to go thru the free real estate booklets. A man was there with his kids and asked us if we were moving to town. We talked a bit, he said how much they loved it here, and that was that. A few weeks later, we're at the attorney's office to sign the papers for the house we'd bought....and in walks the sellers....the husband was the man we'd talked to in the coffee shop. They'd built a bigger home in the same neighborhood.

[gsingjane]

I had been leading a group of my Girl Scouts on a May weekend trip to Sage's Ravine in CT/MA. We were coming down Undermountain Trail to the pickup spot at the parking lot on Rt. 41. I saw a familiar looking woman coming up the trail and sure enough, it was my next-door neighbor! Out on a "backpacking date"! I thought that was pretty cool.

Jane

[Hikemor]

Hiked with a young lady for several weeks on the AT and even stayed at her parent's house in CT one night. Three years later, ran into her and her mom at a shelter in NH.

[illabelle]

While hiking NJ SOBO in May of this year, we shared a shelter with a NOBO group of 3 and a SOBO group of 2. Turns out a guy in each group knew each other from middle school in CT many years earlier.

Next day talking with the SOBO group, we learned one of them was moving to our area for the summer, and needed work done on his Honda. My husband has a Honda repair shop, and he became a customer.

Couple days later while in town for a resupply, a hiker "Cool Breeze" came out of the PO and struck up a conversation. Not only was he from our state, TN, and not just our town, Knoxville, but he was a cashier at a Lowes where my husband regularly shops, and they recognized each other. Got home and looked him up on FB. Found out we already have friends in common. It IS a small world!

[tagg]

While on a two week section hike this past May/June, I waited out a thunderstorm at Wapiti Shelter before setting up camp. There were about 20 of us packed in under the overhang for a half an hour, so there was lots to look at. I noticed that an older guy who is thru hiking this year had a Clemson logo sewn onto his hat, said his name is Tiger Bob. I'm an alumnus, so we started talking about it, and it turns out we currently live about ten minutes away from each other in the same small town. The weekend after I got home, I opened the local paper and there's his picture along with a full page article about his hike.

[Old Grouse]

Mine is also not AT related, but it did occur in two AT States.

Years ago my wife’s older sister lived in Small Point, ME. She and another woman named Janice owned a clothing manufacturing business, employing local seamstresses. When Janice became pregnant, she naturally designed and made her own maternity clothes. My wife was the lucky recipient of these “hand me downs” a year later. Fast forward to 1997 – the clothing business is long gone and my sister-in-law is deceased. My daughter is a sophomore at Dickinson College in Carlisle PA. Whom should the school assign as her roommate by sheer chance? Janice’s daughter, Hannah. So twenty years earlier, these random roommates’ mothers had worn the same maternity outfits.