Coincidence

    I received the latest Stephen King novel for Christmas and have started reading it. It's titled, simply, "11/22/63". This is the date JFK was assassinated. If you are both a Stephen King fan and fascinated (haunted) by the Kennedy killing, then this book is a must-read.
   The premise of the book is that someone from 2011 discovers a portal that transfers them back and forth from the present to the year 1958. One man in particular sets out on the mission to prevent the assassination. When he enters the past, he is in the fictional town of Derry, Maine (if you're a King fan, you're familiar with the name). A fair amount of time is spent describing Derry and everything in it. One of the significant street names mentioned is Kolluth Street. I've never in my life heard this name and King himself even spends a line describing how to pronounce it.

   I let this pass, as I do with a lot of King's voluminous info. Yesterday, however, our family was planning a trip to the Butterfly Conservatory in Cambridge and, as I was looking at the Google map direction, I discovered that the Conservatory is on Kolluth Road! What are the chances that twice in the same week I would run into a street name I'd never in my life heard before?!
   On how many occasions have you had a random thought about a song you haven't heard in years and the very same day they play it on the radio? Happens all the time, doesn't it?
   Many (about 30) years ago I was involved in a minor fender bender. The other driver and I exchanged information, as per usual. What arose from this exchange of info plus informally chatting was that we were both not where we were supposed to have been and had changed our normal routines, all of which brought us to the same time and place. We discovered we both worked for the school board. The man's name was Hutton and that's the public school I went to and, to top it all off, when he saw my address on Emery Street he said that he had once lived at that address in a private home before it got torn down and changed to a four-plex (the one I now lived in)! Small world!

   Back round about the same period of my life we used to get all these phone calls, asking me if I was the same Brian Baker that fixed organs. I wasn't, and after awhile these calls stopped. Many years later I was having a conversation with a Fanshawe student where I worked whose last name was Baker. I introduced myself. She then said that her dad's name was Brian Baker. Playing a hunch, I asked her if by any chance he fixed organs. Her jaw dropped about a foot. "Yes he does! How did you know?!" Even later than that, I found myself stopping into a music shop in Masonville Mall to tell them about a problem I was having with my digital piano keyboard. We talked about possible remedies and they said that if none of those worked that I could bring it in and their keyboard repair guy could take a look at it. And the guy? The same Brian Baker!
   So those are probably the two most memorable strings of coincidences I've run across in my life. They do tend to happen on a regular basis, though. A couple of weeks ago Doralyn and I were watching a movie on Netflix wherein they mention one thing we hadn't heard of before (at this point neither of us can remember what it was, which is annoying me terribly but Doralyn figures it'll come to me right after I post this blog and won't that be a coincidence), we turned off Netflix, switched to regular T.V. and the first channel we turn to is talking about the same subject, right out of the blue!
   How many times, as we've negotiated our way around social network sites, have we said to ourselves, "OMG, so-and-so is also friends with my good friend so-and-so!"

   So does this point out how inter-connected everything in the world is? If you do some research on coincidental occurrences you will discover many absolutely astounding examples. Case in point, all you need do is compare the assassinations of Lincoln and J.F.K. It seems almost incomprehensible that there should be so many similarities. Yet, there they are. Were they discovered simply because of the vast amount of scrutiny both of those events received? If we (and thousands of researchers) delved into a whole myriad of events in our own lives would we discover like sets of similarities? Possibly. Then again, perhaps there was something about the social enormity of Lincoln and Kennedy which, in the swirling vortex of the universe and all its energy, brought them together, 100 years apart from each other.
   Is there such a thing as destiny, then? If there is a force out there drawing us into patterns wherein unbelievable coincidences occur then how much choice do we have in how we run our lives? One changed decision in either of those presidents' lives would have rendered future similarities negligible and unremarkable.
   I'd like to think that we have total control over what goes on in our lives. At the same time, I'm fascinated by the idea that we are all just spinning around in patterns that eventually collide with each other, coincidentally. What I don't believe is that there is a God, running things. Sometimes coincidences happen and are called miracles. Sometimes this happens in reverse. I suppose that what we call them depends on just what our spiritual beliefs are.
   When I think of fate, destiny and coincidence, I often go back to the World Trade Center attacks. You listen to the stories about people that should have been in one of the buildings when they were hit but, for some reason, weren't. At the same time, there were stories about people that weren't supposed to be there but, unfortunately, were. Were there forces behind that? And what of all the people that were there because it was simply a regular work day in their regular lives. Just their fate? Or purely coincidental? As a topic for debate, this would go on forever.
   I look forward to coincidences when they occur in my life. I imagine that it's kind of like finding that four-leaf clover. You know they're out there, you're not sure why, and when they happen it seems magical. At the very least, they provide a moment of wonder in what seems often like a mundane and ordered life. I spend little time pondering their significance, I simply bow to their whimsical nature.