Now & Then: Two ships passing in the night

Complete strangers sometimes meet in the most unusual ways.

Something unexpected happens that brings them together. Before they know it, they feel like long-lost friends.

Sounds like a movie plot when you think about it. 

“Strangers on a Train” comes to mind, but the result of that chance meeting doesn’t lead to a great friendship, if you know what I mean.

Ginny and I have met plenty of people on ocean cruises but that doesn’t count. Those aren’t unpredictable meetings, after all. 

What about when your car breaks down and you make friends with the tow truck driver? Nah. The breakdown may be a surprise but not the driver you called for help.

How about, you get a wrong number call and you find common interests with the caller? Closer, but really, are you going to answer a number you don’t recognize?

Now, you know I’m gonna tell my complete strangers story. I just had to set it up, not to mention fill some space.

OK, so we were at the beach a week or so ago. The beach is my chance to run on flat terrain rather than hilly Asheboro.

I’d had a couple of nice runs during the week. But on this morning Ginny asked me if I wanted waffles for breakfast. I couldn’t resist.

That meant I had a bellyful of weighty carbs bouncing around inside. For that reason, I chose to walk.

Since I was walking I knew I had to go farther to burn more calories. Then by the time I’d gone three miles I checked my gut and found that those waffles had dissipated enough for me to run back to the hotel.

After turning back the way I came, I picked up my pace. At one point, two men 30 or 40 years younger passed me on the other side of the street. I tried to match their speed, to no avail. They were soon out of sight.

Yeah I know, I’m old. But at least some folks gave me thumbs-up when they passed me. Others would speak to me, saying, “Good morning.” 

I had run back about two and a half of the three miles coming back in when it happened. 

The GPS on my phone was reading 5.5 miles when a woman walking the other way spoke to me and I returned her greeting. Immediately afterward, I was lying flat on the sidewalk.

The toe of one of my shoes must have caught an uneven seam in the sidewalk, causing me to lose my balance. In a fraction of a second, I went from vertical to horizontal.

As I struggled to get up, the woman I had just passed came up to check on me.

“Are you hurt?” she asked. 

“Only my pride,” I answered.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” she wanted to know.

I checked and found a scrape on my left knee but nothing serious.

She volunteered to walk with me to make sure everything was fine. At first I said that wasn’t necessary but she said she was walking anyway. That gave us a chance to get to know each other a bit.

Her name is Keri and she appeared to be about the age of my three daughters. She grew up in Portsmouth, Ohio, and graduated from Ohio University. She now lives in a small town outside Atlanta. She has two sons and will soon be a grandmother. 

Oh, and Keri has had MS for 10 years.

When we arrived at my hotel, we were good friends. Unfortunately, we hadn’t shared our last names and I didn’t think to give her my business card.

Of our newfound friendship, Keri said, “It was meant for us to meet.”

I can only hope that Keri, somehow, reads this column and finds a way to tell me what she thinks.

We’re friends, after all.

Larry Penkava is a writer for Randolph Hub. 

Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.