1) My mom was once driving to the entrance of our neighborhood when a car behind her started honking and flashing its lights at her car. She pulled over, and a man got out and told her, "Your taillight is out, and who do you have that goes to Clemson? I went there in 1970!" He'd seen my mom's Clemson Mom sticker and felt compelled to ask her about it since very few people in Rhode Island go there. They chatted about it for a while and then he drove off.
Fast forward a while to this May, when I was parked in my local Walmart's parking lot. My license plate is CLMSN and I also have a magnet on my car, so it's very obvious what school I go to. As I'm loading my bags into the trunk a man gets out of the car next to me and says, "I have the other half of your license plate!" He had an old Rhode Island plate that said TIGERS. We talked about Clemson for a while and it turns out that not only did he remember my mom talking about me, but he also knew my dad through work! Very cool connection through school for me.
2) When I was doing college tours in 2011 (but it seems like forever ago!) I was at the University of Maryland and just as the tour was ending I ran into a boy I knew from elementary school who'd moved away to Ohio and then back to a different town in RI. We chatted for a while and then went our separate ways.
I also had made a friend at a summer camp I went to in 7th and 8th grade, but then lost touch with her after that. Sophomore year of high school my field hockey team was scrimmaging the town next to mine and I started chatting with a girl who looked suspiciously familiar. It turns out that she was my long-lost friend from summer camp! We ran into each other at field hockey events a few more times, and she was always super friendly to me.
How are these two stories, already coincidental in and of themselves, related? I'm friends with both of these people on Facebook, and I saw that they were tagged in a photo album together. I commented asking how they knew each other, since I knew them from two completely different places-come to find out they've been family friends for as long as they can remember!
I am convinced that everyone in Rhode Island knows each other, knows someone that knows them, or is related.
|