Last weekend, Rachel and I were in St. Louis for her birthday weekend. We went to visit family, and also to see James Taylor in concert. Rachel is a big fan of his, but he never seems to come to San Antonio for concerts. His concert over her birthday weekend made a trip to St. Louis a no-brainer.

While we were waiting for the concert to start, Rachel posted a picture of the stage on Facebook. I went to use the restroom before the show and get us some drinks. When I got back to our seats, Rachel was gone. After about ten minutes, she came back all excited. One of her high school friends, whom she had not seen since high school, had responded to her Facebook post. She was sitting two sections away from us at the James Taylor concert! We met up with her and her husband for drinks after the show. Small world with amazing coincidences.

That all prompted me to write about similar "small world coincidences" which have happened over the years. Some of them happened to me. Some of them happened to others I know. However, they are all fairly amazing.

1) My mom didn't learn that her father was not actually her father until after my grandparents had passed. That threw her into a genealogy frenzy. She not only researched her family, but did some on my father's side of the family, will come up in the next story. As part of her research, she "met" a distant Massachusetts cousin on the internet through one of her research forums. He sent her a digital copy of a daguerreotype portrait of one of her great grand mothers. Don't press me for exact details, as I don't remember who she was for sure. Anyway, about a year after it was sent to her, Mom and Dad made a trip to Virginia Beach to visit my sister, Patti. On their way back to Texas, the stopped for gas/potty/coffee at a Stuckey's. I think it was in the Carolina's. While Mom was waiting for Daddy to use the restroom, she noticed a box of old antique photographs and started looking through it. She found one that looked exactly like the image her cousin had sent to her. Against my penny-pinching father's wishes, she paid for the picture and carried it home. Daddy teased her about how impossible it was for it to be the same portrait. He had to eat humble pie when she laid the actual daguerreotype beside the copy she had printed and saw that it actually was the same portrait. Small world with amazing coincidences.

2) When my CIT position for Northside ISD was split between Carson Elementary and Braun Station Elementary, I met a woman named Jamie Baker Linthicum. During my four years at Braun Station, we jokingly called each other cousins. Jamie's brother came to the school one day. We were in the office, and she introduced me as a cousin. I told him that it was just a joke we shared, and that my actual family name had been spelled Boecker. He responded with, "So was ours!" I went home and dug out my my mother's research. He went home and dug out his family's research. Sure enough, we were descended from two brothers who came to America as indentured servants. My line is from one brother. His line is from the other. We are actually distant cousins. Small world with amazing coincidences.

3) I met Rachel the day I showed up for new teacher orientation at Loma Park Elementary School in Edgewood ISD. She arrived a little late, during a tour of the school. I watched as a vision of loveliness approached the small group being led my Raquel Escobar, the principal. I was instantly smitten, and spent the rest of the day sneaking glances at her with my heart doing jumping jacks in my chest. The rest is history.

When Rachel and I got married, she had a roommate named, Dottie Riddle. Dottie just happened to be from Toledo, Ohio, where some of my dad's family lived. Most of them actually lived in neighboring communities, such as Maumee, Genoa, or Sylvania. Dad had grown up on a farm until he was a teenager. Then, what was left of the family (most of his siblings were adults and had moved out) moved to Toledo. Dad attended Libby High School on the south side of Toledo.

Dottie met and married a man named Chris Hauser in San Antonio. They eventually moved to Toledo, where Chris was able to get a job as a civil engineer. But my story takes place earlier, when Rachel and I went to their wedding in Toledo. The reception was held at Dottie's grandmother's mansion in a very exclusive neighborhood. It was a beautiful home, just like you see in the movies. That night, I met Dottie's father for the first time. He said, "Baker? I went to school with a Barry Baker. Are you his boy?" I told him that my dad had gone to Libby High School, but left the Toledo area years ago to go into the Air Force. Mr. Riddle then led me over to the bar. He introduced me to the bartender, an African American man, and told me that he had also been in school with my dad. I only mention that he was an African American, because my dad graduated in 1947. At that time, the concept of integration was not even thought of in Texas.

When I got back to Texas, I told my dad about the two men I had met. He remembered both of them. Mr. Riddle had not been a close friend, but the bartender and Daddy had been on the track team together, and were friendly, if not best buddies. Small world with amazing coincidences.

4) When my youngest son, Jared, was in second grade, we moved him to my school, Carson Elementary. He was placed in Christine Harthan's class. Her son was a 5th-grader when the school first opened. I watched him grow up through his involvement with the Boy Scouts. At one time, he even helped out with my oldest son's troop. He and his mom and dad lived just up the street from us. But that's not what my story is about.

Rachel's mother, Jane, moved to Greenville, South Carolina for about ten years. She lived in a really nice house in an adult community on a street named Hummingbird Ridge. It was about three miles from Rachel's brother's home. After several years, Rachel's brother moved his family to Cape Gerardeau, Missouri. That prompted Jane's return to St.Louis.

Christine Harthan's husband, Bruce, passed away. She left Texas and lived in a few other places. Eventually, she remarried. We have been Facebook friends for a long time. One day, I noticed that she had moved to Greenville, South Carolina. Out of curiosity, I asked her where. She was living in a house three doors down from where Jane had lived! Small world with amazing coincidences.

5) One last story... Rachel's mother passed away on Rachel and my anniversary in 2016. We went up for her funeral, of course. However, it was our next visit that my story takes place. Unfortunately, I can't remember for sure when it was. I do know that Rachel and I drove to visit Rachel's mom's grave. We had a hard time finding it, because we weren't exactly taking notice of the location during the funeral. I thought I had an image in my mind, but there was no area that matched it. We stopped the car a few times and wandered around the graves looking for it. As we were searching, I came upon some head stones with the name Casstevens on them. I worked with a woman named Jennifer Casstevens Smith at Carson Elementary School. I knew she had some kind of St. Louis history, and since the name is so unusual, I texted a photo of the graves to her. She responded, telling me that they were her grandparents' graves. Of all the cemeteries in St. Louis, her family is buried near Rachel's family in a cemetery which had originally been the final resting place for members of the Lutheran church that Rachel's family all attended. Jennifer did not think her grandparents were even from that church. Small world with amazing coincidences.