Sometimes I wonder, is it just me, or is this normal? I keep thinking, what are the odds?
First, three out of four of us Rogers brothers at different times and places married Carolyns. Not a plan—just happened that way! Made for fun times at family get-togethers, like Thanksgiving.
After our Dad died, our brother Gene found us after we put Dad’s obituary in the Oregon paper. Gene messaged me, and I was happy he did, because we knew he was out there but had been adopted and couldn’t be traced. I called him and talked on the phone for a few minutes, and I found out he was an auto mechanic, as I was, and a shop teacher.
Of course we got to talking about cars, and I mentioned that my commuter car was a Ford Festiva with over two hundred thousand miles and still running strong. There was a long silence, and then he replied, “Don’t tell me it’s blue!” Well, it was blue, so I had to tell him. He had an identical Ford Festiva. It’s not a common car, so what are the odds?
As soon as I could, I went up to visit him near Yakima, WA, and we both found we were restoring old cars. His was an old Buick, and mine was an old Cadillac.
When he was showing me around his house, on the wall in his bedroom was a large photo, several feet long, of a B-17 bomber. I asked if he knew our father was a mechanic instructor and crew chief on a B-17 during WWII. He had no idea, since he never knew our father. He was just drawn to the picture. There must be more to this genetic thing than we know.
Last year I had an appointment for cleaning my teeth at the local dentist’s office. It’s not a big one, just one dentist and a few dental hygienists. I had to postpone my visit due to other circumstances, so I was several days late when I arrived. As I got comfortable in the chair, a young lady came up beside me and asked if I had any brothers. That seemed like an odd question, but I said, “Yes, I have three, Bill, John and Gene”. She replied, “Hello, Uncle Don. I’m John’s granddaughter.” I guessed her name wrong, since I hadn’t seen her since she was three or four years old. She was on a temporary one-day visit from McAlester, OK, to this small dentist’s office. She had seen my mustache, remembered it from when she was a little girl, checked the sign-in sheet and found me.
Yep, Amanda Rogers. What are the odds?
Last weekend I went to Amanda’s wedding three hours north of my home, in Cameron, OK. My brother John and I sat at the same table, as did Dawn, the mother of the bride. There was another man sitting across from me who was also named Don. So the excess of Don, Don and Dawn got a bit confusing.
But that’s not the strangest thing. The other man named Don started asking me where I had worked before I retired, and I mentioned working at a power generation plant in northern Nevada, near Winnemucca. Most people have no idea where Winnemucca is, but he told me he knew just where that was— that he had worked for a mine just across the road. I said, “The Lone Tree mine, by Barrick Gold.” He had also worked for Newmont Gold and several others, all gold mines. He said he worked for a company that makes explosives for the mines. I told him I worked there for about 25 years as the machinist at the power plant.
He asked where I had worked before Nevada, and I told him a little tiny town in Colorado, but he probably wouldn’t know where it was. He said, “Tell me!” So I told him I had worked for nine years in a power plant in Nucla, CO.
He almost yelled, “NUCLA! I worked there earlier this year.” He called his wife over and told her, “He worked at Nucla for nine years!”
The town of Nucla had a sign on the edge of town that said “Home of one thousand friendly people, and one grouch!” I think the one thousand was grossly optimistic, but the local scuttlebutt said they all took turns being the grouch for the day.
I had already told him I was a pilot, and he asked if I had ever landed at Nucla. It’s got a landing strip on top of a mesa and is like landing on an aircraft carrier. I said, Yes, I landed there once in a Cessna 172, and the guy who owned the airport told me–with a laugh—that there was an explosives manufacturing plant off the west end of the runway, so I shouldn’t crash there. The guy said they made Prill, which I think is a trade name for ammonium nitrate, also known as Ampho.
He said, “Yes, that’s my plant!” I told him I had watched video of the demolition of the old power plant at Nucla, pointing out where my lathe and other machines were located in the building, before it all came tumbling down in a big blast.
He said he had set some of those charges.
Yeah! So what are the odds?