“It’s a small world after all…
It’s a small world after all…
It’s a small world after all…
It’s a small, small world.” — From a Disney movie
Every once in a while we encounter evidence of a small world with coincidences that can be startling, and sometimes even creepy.
I’ve actually had a few such experiences, and I suppose I’ll never forget them.
One occurred in 1988 when I first started as editor at J-Ad Graphics in Hastings. I quickly learned that the Hastings High School librarian was Charmaine Purucker. A name such as hers is unique and unforgettable. I remembered she was named Albion High School volleyball coach in 1977, but was forced to step aside in favor of Marty Andrews of Battle Creek, who earned rave reviews from Albion’s athletic director. Purucker spent the winter as an assistant swim coach, and was displeased enough to land a new job in Alaska the following year.
I asked her about it and she acknowledged all of it.
Yet it was Andrews who was surrounded by even more “small world” phenomena. After we became friends he told me in early 1981 that he sincerely believed he was the roommate of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s assassin. Andrews had served in the Peace Corps in Lebanon in 1975 and learned that Mark David Chapman was reported to have been in that country during the same year.
I should have written a story about this oddity, but failed to do so.
Another instance was in the fall of 1976 when I was watching Monday Night football. Like so many other NFL teams the SanFrancisco 49ers held a Punt, Pass & Kick competition at halftime, featuring regional winners ages 8 to 12. A regional competitor from Honolulu, Hawaii, was Cynthia Stehouwer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Stehouwer. Her dad was a terrific football player for Wayland High School in the 1950s and her uncle, Ron, played offensive line for the Pittsburgh Steelers after graduating from WHS. The Wayland High School football stadium is named after him.
The school board forum Monday night included banter about people who watch Hallmark TV movies. They probably didn’t realize that one of the biggest stars in that genre is Torrey DeVito, daughter of 1969 Wayland High School graduate Mary Torrey, who also was a close friend of and personal assistant to Stevie Nicks.
While living in Ann Arbor, I watched the 1986 Rose Bowl and overheard announcer Dick Enberg, a Central Michigan University graduate, say “Hello, Ypsilanti Michigan” when UCLA running back Eric Ball scored a touchdown. Eric was an alum of Ypsilanti High and his sister, Monica, was a first-rate volleyball player for the school. My wife had a chance to meet her when refereeing a volleyball match that winter.
The most personal for me was David Coverly, author of the cartoon strip “Speed Bump,” who cut his teeth as cartoonist with the Allegan County News & Gazette. I was editor and coaxed him into the arrangement (paltry pay) while he was a student Indiana University and an alumni of Plainwell High School. Coverly joined a cartoonist seminar in Grand Rapids and graciously told a J-Ad Graphics staffer he remembered me well. Thanks, Dave.
Another high profile person in the journalism business who remembered me was Detroit Free Press sports writer Mick McCabe, who was describing Milton Barnes as a good fit for Albion High School basketball coach in 1989. He wrote that the would-be coach earned praise from Albion Recorder sports editor David T. Young as “Good News Barnes,” in contrast with the Detroit Pistons “bad boy.” Thanks, Mick.
As Johnny Mathis once crooned more than a half century ago — “Small world, isn’t?”