Serendipity

This is turning into one lion of a winter, eh? Its –7 here today and the snow has languished on the ground like a cat curled up in the sun. That’s unusual here in Colchester. Snow rarely sits for any length of time. Heck, two Fridays ago, I walked out to the car leaving for work and had to navigate around a big ole puddle in the walkway. I remember thinking that was a good indication that we were done with winter. That, and the arrival of a few thousand migrant workers to the region for the greenhouses had me believing it was so. It was only a matter of days when the regular wave of workers were leaving homes with 26C and arriving in –26 with the wind chill. Thrift stores had a run of winter clothes that week. The Coast Guard ice breaker had to bust up the the ice at the mouth of the Detroit River to free up for docking.

I like to facebook now and then to keep in touch with the family younglings. Conventional means of communication are not frequented by the y generation, and, I find I have better sources of family info from the 20-year-old kids, nieces and nephews than most of my siblings do by facebooking. Anyhow, I digress; last week I got an email on my facebook from a vaguely familiar name that was asking if I was the guy who attended Murdoch MacKay high school in the sixties. Turns out he relocated to the west coast after retiring back home and was driven to start a web group specializing in the 60s classmates. Its been a hoot chatting and observing the ever growing members exchanging life stories and remembrances. There was one serendipitous revelation when, unearthing by relocated childhood friends, its realized they are living mere blocks from each other in the adopted city after all these years.

The attraction seems to be strongest to the patrons that have relocated over the years, but that is expected. It’s the absence of the network of history and grounded constancy that have been replaced with quest and movement that would be most appealing to revisiting the long lost homegrown memories. One characteristic seemingly common to all, and captured in one posting observing the relocated Manitobans preoccupation to phone home and talk (quibble...lol) about the weather. Ha Ha Ha.