Part 4 Violating the Law of Probability
This is so weird. Not earth shaking, but weird. Here I was a few days ago, involved in writing a blog about a series of very improbable events which have occurred during my life, and Caramba!!, another one happens. Picture this:

Place: St. Simons Island, Georgia, Harris-Teeters supermarket. Time: Five days ago.

My son, Josh, and I are checking a pile of avocados to find one which is ready to eat. A man, possibly about fifty years of age, who is also shopping, hands me an avocado, saying," Here’s a good one." He steps away, and I hear him say, "Are you from Colorado?" Now I must explain that my hearing is not very good, and my son later informed me that what he was really saying was that this was a ripe avocado.. I answer, "Yes. I’m from Colorado." His eyebrows rise and his eyes widen as he asks me where I’m from in Colorado. I tell him that I was born and raised in Denver. Now he yells,"Steve", and waves to another man shopping amongst the vegetables nearby. So Steve comes over , and the first man, whose name is Mark, tells him that I am from Denver.

Steve is from Denver and is visiting here in St. Simons Island. He asks me about the part of town in which I was raised, the high school I attended, and other similar questions. I tell him that I was raised on the West side of town and that I attended North Denver High School. He asks me if I remember any names of people I knew as a kid. He comes out with a number of Italian names, some of which I remember from high school. Then he mentions the name Hoffman. I tell him that I do remember a Morris Hoffman, a kid who grew up with me in the children’s institution where I was raised. As we kids all had nicknames, he was known to us as Tuffy Hoffman.

Steve just about went through the roof at hearing this. It turned out that Tuffy is one of his family’s closest friends. Steve’s father and Tuffy worked together for many years. And so we reminisced, exchanging memories of "The Queen City of the Plains" before it mushroomed and morphed into the big metropolis that it is today.

This is another improbable meeting. Mark is a neurologist with a practice in Denver and in Georgia. He has a home on St. Simons Island. Steve is an attorney, and he and his wife are visiting their friend Mark. The guys were doing the shopping for a dinner which their wives would prepare. And this chance encounter developes a link with a kid who grew up with me seventy years ago and a thousand miles away.