Chance Encounters

(image by johnNaturePhotos on pixabay)

When I was twenty-three years old, I took the train across Canada from my university in Montreal to Vancouver to go home for Christmas.

In Alberta, two cute boys got on the train, so naturally I started chatting with them. As we got to talking, it turned out that one of them was a reporter for a small town newspaper. He mentioned the he covered the local arts and music scene and the town had recently hosted a writers retreat with some famous names.

Now I was friends with the son and daughter of one of Canada’s best poets. He and his equally famous poet wife would eventually become my in-laws. They were also living in Montreal at the time and we had got together for visits a couple of times. When I told this reporter of our connection, he said he also knew them well from when they all lived in Swift Current Saskatchewan.

I invited these two boys to hang out with me and my bestie in Vancouver for Xmas week and we played tour guide for them. The reporter randomly asked me if I would take the poets a goose from his farm in Alberta for Christmas if he could arrange to have a family member meet me at the train station in Field, Alberta for the handoff. I said sure, why not?

So, there I was, in the dead of winter, being handed a frozen goose on some desolate train platform in the middle of nowhere. I asked the club car porter to stow it in their freezer for the remainder of the journey. Then we carried on across another million miles of prairie and forest.

Then, train trouble in Sudbury! We all had to disembark and got loaded onto a Greyhound bus. My goose went into the baggage hold. By the time we got to Montreal, it has thawed and stunk and I had to throw it out. All I got for my troubles was a good story to tell.

These types of chance encounters are what life is made of. Have you ever met someone who made a lasting impression? Please subscribe and leave a comment below.