(Submitted by reader Susie Kaufman)
I have a friend who, some 40+ years ago, decided to travel around Europe. Somewhere along his route, he hooked up with another guy (from London), also interested in art, so the two of them continued their six-weeks-long trek from gallery to gallery, museum to museum, country to country.
When they parted ways, there were promises of staying in touch, but it didn’t happen.
Maybe a decade later, my Los Angeles friend and I got onto a New York City subway. We seated ourselves across from a chap with a knapsack, who politely asked for directions to an art museum.
Sure enough, it was his old travel-mate! And THIS time, they stayed in touch.
[EDITOR: Certainly when you combine all the various factors of people who shared a very large city as a home with meeting up in another very large city that’s a common destination, you improve the odds a little bit versus them running into each other in, say, Topeka. But even so, it’s a big planet with 7 billion people in it. Factor down to those with the money and ability to travel and you still have an exceptional number. It can be pretty mind-boggling when this sort of thing happens. But then again, with that many people and that many combinations, it has to happen occasionally to someone. Doesn’t make it any less startling when it does, though.]
