Tag Archive: Texas


London Encounter

Filed Under: Skepticality, Stories by Reader submission — 2 Comments
October 6, 2015

(Submitted by Skepticality listener Peg Gantz)

In 1996, my son and I flew from Glens Falls, N.Y., (via Albany, N.Y., and Newark, N.J.) to visit my daughter, a college student doing a semester abroad in Bath, England. We flew in to Heathrow and took a train to Bath. At the end of our visit, we spent a couple of nights in London.

The day before our visit there had been an IRA bombing on a London bus, so security was very tight. Because of a suspicious package, and announcement was made that the tube would not stop at our intended station of Covent Garden, so we got off at the stop before and started walking in what I hoped was the correct direction to Covent Garden.

As we stopped on a traffic island in the middle of a street, I asked a man who also was on the island if he could direct me to Covent Garden. “Sorry,” he drawled, “but I’m from Texas, and I’m lost, too.” We went our separate ways.

Two days later my son and I were in line at Gatwick airport. (Yes, we flew IN to Heathrow and OUT from Gatwick; no idea why, but the tickets were a gift from my brother, who’d used his frequent flyer miles, so I was not about to question it.) A man stood in line behind us, and it was the Texan we’d encountered on a traffic island somewhere near Covent Garden in London! We exchanged greetings, made note of the unusual coincidence, and again went our separate ways. (And in case you’re wondering, I never saw him again.)

I’ve often wondered what were the odds of lost U.S. citizens from different parts of the country meeting for the first time on a London traffic island, then encountering one another again in line at the airport.

Below are the extended notes provided by cognitive psychologist and statistician Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 261.  Take a look and leave your comments below. Also, please be sure to listen to the podcast for our own hilarious commentary. Also, visit Barbara’s blog ICBS Everywhere, and Insight at Skeptics Society.

Unfortunately, I have no answers for this one except to say that low-odds events must happen occasionally. This story actually reminds me of one of my own.

We (my husband, our two boys, and my parents) were flying from our home in Los Angeles to Vancouver the day before our ship sailed to Alaska. Our boys were (and still are) both constantly drawing and one of them was doing so while the plane was boarding. A man noticed, complimented our son’s work, and offered to draw something for him. In a few minutes my son had a personalized cartoon of Homer and Bart Simpson, drawn by a man who had worked as an artist and director for the show for many years.

The next day we saw the man and his family as we were boarding our cruise. He and his wife had two boys of their own, a bit younger than ours, and were booked on the same cruise and post-cruise activities. As you can imagine, we were able to spend some time together and became friends.

The odds are good that at least one family on a flight from LA to Vancouver is scheduled to board a cruise ship the next day, but the odds that two families who don’t know each other are scheduled to board the same ship AND interact are likely pretty small, although not nearly as small as running into someone in an airport that you saw on a traffic island days before in a highly populated city.

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My, How You’ve Changed

Filed Under: Skepticality, Stories by Reader submission — 1 Comment
February 12, 2013

(Submitted by reader Cathy Smith)

My best friend in Jr. High was Lisa Butland.  We were both Air Force brats, stationed in Germany at the time.  By the time we graduated high school, our families were transferred to Texas, hers to Austin, and mine to San Antonio.  Afterwards, I moved to California, and we completely lost touch with one another.

Over ten years later I was back in San Antonio, and my boyfriend lived at the German House Co-Op, by the University of Texas campus.  One of the residents, Mark, looked vaguely familiar to me, but it took me a few visits to figure out why.  The kid with the Coke bottle glasses he reminded me of was only about twelve years old the last time I saw him.  As soon as I realized who he might be, I knocked on his bedroom door.

“Mark?” I peeked my head in the door.  The room was dark because the shades were still drawn.  Mark was in the top bunk, and his eyes were squinting because he did not have his glasses on yet.

“Yes?”  he said.

“Did you ever live in Germany?” I asked.

“Yes?”  he responded looking puzzled.

“Was your dad stationed at Hahn Air Force Base?”  I asked with a big smile.

He hesitated.  “Yes?”

“Is your last name Butland?”  I was getting excited.

“Yes?”  He sounded slightly disturbed.

“Do you have a sister named Lisa?”  I continued.  He obviously could not see the expression on my face.

He looked a little worried.  “Yes?”

“Do you remember a Cathy Sexton?”  I asked.

At this point, his eyes opened as wide as they could.  He took a big gasp of air and in an astonished voice exclaimed:  “You know Cathy Sexton?!!”

That was about twenty years ago.  As soon as he realized that I was Cathy Sexton, he gave me his sister’s number, and Lisa and I have been best friends ever since.

Below are the extended notes provided by Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 200. Take a look and leave your comments below.

I’m sure that you can guess what I’ll say about this one: it’s not so surprising, but it’s interesting nonetheless!

The most common coincidence stories seem to be related to meeting people with whom they had a past connection. They are very significant to the people who experience them, but the truth is that they are less interesting statistically than one might think.This case is no different; she met the brother of her long-lost friend not far from where she left them and they were probably close in age and socioeconomic status, increasing the probability of frequenting the same places.  As often is the case, I find the story about how they discovered the connection more interesting than the connection itself.
The majority of stories are either about someone the author clearly recognized or a conversation which leads them to realize that there is some deep personal connection, usually geographical. I have rarely heard stories in which the author’s memory is jogged after a few exposures to an individual.
We all meet people who seem very familiar and sometimes it takes us some time to put our finger on why. This is so common that it was used as a plot device (ever see the movie “The Arrival”?). But the vast majority of those cases involve a distinctive feature or mannerism which is shared by someone we know well rather than a person we have actually met before. For example, everyone with an underbite reminds me of a cousin I was close to while growing up.
But the fact that the author eventually figured it out and acted on it (and that it turned out to be someone she actually knew) makes this story unusual.
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Trio of Traveling Tales

Filed Under: Skepticality, Stories by Reader submission — Leave a comment
August 28, 2012

We’ve got a special three-story set for you guys this time. Enjoy. Or don’t. We’re not going to force you.

(Submitted by reader Tracy McFadin)

In 1972 I was driving along a major street in Dallas, TX. and saw two young girls, maybe 17 or 18, hitchhiking (a rather common sight in those days) and stopped to give them a ride.

They were headed to one of the girls’ homes, and said it wasn’t too far from where we were. Having grown up in that area of Dallas myself, I said “Well where is it, because I know this neighborhood?” But the one giving me directions didn’t really know the street names, so she just kept saying “Turn left here, now go a block…take a right” etc. etc.

Well, amazingly, where she ended up directing me to, was the house that I had grown up in for the first 10 years of my life! My family had moved from that house some 11 years earlier.

Of course I was completely blown away by the coincidence, and excitedly was telling them how I had once lived there, and how crazy that was, but they totally thought I was full of it, and that I was making up some wild tale to somehow impress them.

Maybe one of them will read this, and say “Hey! That was me! That is so amazing!” Of course, no one will believe her ; ) …But crazier things have been known to happen.

(Submitted by reader Dave)

I grew up in Moses Lake, WA on the eastern desert side of the state. A couple blocks from us lived one of my best friends Adam. Our families were also close as his dad was our family doctor.

When I was about 5 years old Adam moved away out of state, and shortly after my dad got a job in state government and we moved to the capital Olympia on the other side of the state. Several years later we moved into a new house and I started going to a new school. When I entered my new fifth grade class I recognized a kid but I couldn’t place him. We found out we live a couple blocks away from each other so we started hanging out.

It wasn’t until our parents met and remembered each other that we found out that Adam and his family had settled in a new house the same distance from ours as our houses were back in Moses Lake!  What are the odds?

 (Submitted by reader R L Fletcher)

I was driving my grandchildren back home to Birmingham, AL after a week long visit at our home in a suburb of Dallas, TX.  About 200 miles into the 650 mile journey, we stopped at a Starbucks in Shreveport so the grandson and granddaughter could use the restroom and I could grab a cup of joe.

As we were walking back to my car, someone yelled out my grandson’s name. It was my wife’s brother and his wife! Unbeknownst to me they were driving from their home south of Dallas to Chattanooga, TN, and we just happened to cross paths at that Starbucks!

Below are the extended notes provided by Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 189. Take a look and leave your comments below.

I don’t find the first story remarkable at all, although I am sure it felt that way to the author. While a lot of houses fit in a reasonable radius for hitchhiking, they number in the hundreds, not hundreds of thousands and the author probably frequented the area.
The second story is eerie, but it would be more impressive if the distance both families moved was much greater.
The third story seems less coincidental, given that there are a limited number of routes between major cities, but there is an additional element which makes it much less likely to occur: timing. A Starbucks pit stop is very short, so crossing paths there is indeed crazy odds.
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God & Pizza in Vermont

Filed Under: Skepticality, Stories by Reader submission — 4 Comments
June 19, 2012

(Submitted by friend of the blog, Alison Smith)

My friend Jeff Wagg and I both worked at the James Randi Educational Foundation for some time. We were close enough that we often had yelled debates over the phone – and the most popular conversation between us was about a higher power. Unlike many of my friends in the critical thinking world, I am not an atheist – though characterizing my form of belief is rather difficult.

One day, Jeff and I were winding down from one of these debates, and, tired of the argument, Jeff said, “I would believe in God if pizza showed up on my doorstep.” (I should add that he insists he said ‘a pizza’).

Immediately, I began to plan. Jeff lived in the middle of nowhere in Vermont. Pizza places didn’t deliver to him, and the nearest restaurant was something like half an hour away. I, at the time, lived in Texas – so I couldn’t shuttle a pizza over, either.

But we did have a mutual friend in New Hampshire – one that was driving over to visit Jeff soon – and she was the nice sort of person who would do a favor if asked. I called her and asked that, along the way, she stop off and get pizza to take to Jeff. I didn’t tell her the reason, or the source of the issue. I am not sure, even now, if she knew at the time that I wasn’t an atheist. She did agree to get the pizza, and I sat back, like a villain in a comic book, with a bit of maniacal laughter.

On the way to Jeff’s house, our friend stopped off to get the pizza and while there saw a greeting card she liked. She bought it, wrote in it, and added it to the pizza to take to Jeff. He opened it, and was amazed. So am I – even still.

The front of the card was the painting ‘The Creation of Adam’ – where God is reaching out to Adam, and Adam is reaching back. However, in this interpretation, their hands were not empty. God held out a pizza, and Adam held out money. On the inside, our friend wrote, “And God said, ‘Let there be pizza!'”

Jeff is still an atheist, though – because our friend didn’t get him ‘a pizza’, as he claims he said. She got slices.

Go figure.

Below are the extended notes provided by Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 185. Take a look and leave your comments below.

As cute, funny, and amazing as this story is, the ‘amazing’ part does not hold up to scrutiny. The author notes that arguments about the existence of God were common between he and Jeff. It’s likely that Jeff had discussions about religion with others as well. Given that the woman who visited Jeff is a mutual friend, the odds are pretty good that the friend was an atheist or at least enjoyed discussions about religion herself. When she saw the card, she knew that Jeff would appreciate that humor, and the fact that she was bringing him pizza made the card funnier, even though she did not know that the pizzahad anything to do with a discussion about God. This is a case in which shared interests and values are responsible for the friendships the three shared, making the odds of something like this happening much greater than they appear. Great story, but not ‘crazy’ odds. 

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Party Lines

Filed Under: Stories by Reader submission — 1 Comment
May 18, 2012

(Submitted by reader Tracy M)

In the early 1970s I was working for a large telecommunications company in Dallas, as was my friend Rick with whom I shared an apartment. During that time my brother had recently been discharged from the military service and we had celebrated his homecoming with a party at our apartment which lasted until the wee hours and involved way too much indulging of alcohol. When my brother left the party that night, he told me that he might need to borrow my car the next day and asked me what my phone number was so that he could reach me if he needed the car, so I gave it to him.

The next morning my friend Rick woke up with a bad hangover and, though it was a Saturday, he was scheduled to work that day. Feeling very groggy, he decided he would rather walk to work instead of drive since it was only about a mile, and he thought that it would make him feel better; so off he went. When he got to work though, he was still feeling quite bad, and since he was the only one there, he made as comfortable a spot for himself as he could and curled up on the floor and went to sleep.

About a month later, Rick and I again threw a party which my brother attended. We all got around to discussing the last party, and how bad we had all felt the next day, when Rick said “I was so sick that morning that I curled up on the floor at the office, and then your brother calls and wakes me up asking if you were there. I told him that you were at home, but he really ruined my nap!” My brother looked confused, and said “I didn’t call you at work, I called him at the apartment at the number you gave me.” We all seemed confused at this point, and I asked Rick “What line did he call on?” He said “Well that’s the weird thing, he called on a test line.” (Being a telephone central office, we had banks of test lines.)

Well, it took a bit of unraveling. It turns out that the test line at the office was coincidentally one digit off from my home phone number, and my brother had accidentally misdialed the number, thinking he was reaching me at my apartment, but instead waking my hungover roommate. Now,what are the odds?

[EDITOR: Many of us have had the experience at some point in our lives of being just one number off (or reversed numbers, or something similar) from a popular number, such as a pizza place, a security company, etc. Wrong numbers aren’t at all uncommon, obviously. But it’s a pretty unique event when the wrong number still happens to be directly connected to you (or someone in your direct circle) without you even knowing it. But this is another one of those examples of a coincidence that’s freaky enough to stand out, but meaningless in the end. Which means when enough of these happen (and they do), they’re bound to occasionally add up to something more meaningful for a select few. – Jarrett]

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