In the past week I have bumped into three people from my hometown. One was working at a local supermarket near-ish my house that I occasionally frequent; one was stretching by the side of the road along a path I bike with his car left idling at the curb; one was at the hometown beach where we both happened to be looking overhead as the coast guard was, unfortunately, out in a helicopter searching for a swimmer who had been swept away by a large wave earlier that day. He and friends had gone for a new year's swim in the Pacific. (The young man, I have since learned, was not able to be found, sadly.) It's really not a stretch to think that I, someone currently living about 15 miles from my hometown, would occasionally see folk from where I grew up and with whom I grew up. Many Pacificans actually haven't moved away, and if they had done, then they probably couldn't be able to afford moving back.
I have a good eye for faces--sometimes even backsides--and can usually spot someone whom I recognize before they have a chance to recognize me. When I was a young person, having this ability used to make me feel weird. I wondered why I seemed to know people who didn't seem to know me. Some people have even reacted to my recognizing them with a bit of discomfort. 'No! No! I'm not a stalker! I'm just pretty sure we went to elementary school together!' It hadn't occurred to me yet that not everyone had the same power of recall that I seemed to have. Of the three home-towners, the person with whom I'd had the most contact the first few decades of my life didn't recognize me at all. One, a friend post high school, knew my name as readily as I knew hers and the last dude and I knew we'd gone to high school together nearly 35 years ago, but couldn't remember each other's names.
That last dude's name is John Smith. No joke. John first spoke to me as I was walking past him en route to my car while occasionally looking up at the search and rescue helicopter overhead: 'They're looking for a body'. I stopped walking. The red 'copter was making its rounds. I said, 'Are they?' I hadn't yet heard about the 'polar plunge' swimmer. The man I was talking with looked so familiar, but I could hear a soft yet persistent southern accent when he spoke and it sort of threw me. (As it turned out, he'd relocated to Tennessee shortly after high school ended and he's just returned to the family home to help look after his mother.) We talked about the coast guard a bit more and dude certainly no longer sounded as if he were from California and yet... He was also sporting large, mirrored sunglasses that blocked out his eyes entirely. At some point I blurted out: Did we go to high school together? He nodded. Ha.
***
While biking through the park last week I spied a very large coastal pine that had taken a tumble during the deluge brought about by the last round of heavy storms. A lot of the older pines in the park have partially exposed root systems and this old gal was no different. Below you can see I'm standing in part of the crater-like depression tree left behind when it tipped forward into Metson Lake in Golden Gate Park.
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| Jutting halfway across Metson Lake |
It is voices I recognise rather than faces or bodies. And I sometimes (to my shame) struggle to recognise anyone out of context (which has on a busy day included a sister-in-law).
ReplyDeleteI mourn for the trees lost in storms and yes, those are humungous routes.
The poor family of that swimmer...
Oooh, voice recognition is a good one as well. Oops. Poor, SIL.
DeleteThe tree was an unwelcomed site, to be sure. I wonder what the parks and rec dept. folk will do about it.
Terrible about the swimmer. He was a study-abroad-student from Bagdad attending a local uni in SF. I feel for his family back home.
The meetings that can be classed as a Cosmic Chuckle...
ReplyDeleteOnes that Fate certainly put her fingers into to get the right people together wherever!
Indeed!
Delete"It's a small world!"
ReplyDeleteQuite!
DeleteThere is a name for good face recall. Apparently there are people who can see a person once, and years later can still remember exactly when they saw them before. My recall is not nearly as good as yours.
ReplyDeleteOne term I've heard of to describe someone with nearly perfect recall (not me) is: super recognizer. I think I'm on that spectrum, but have made flubs, so not that 'super'. Heh.
DeletePoor tree. One of my good friend's dad was named John Smith. I see people occasionally that I went to high school with around town and I just move along. I don't know if they recognize me but I don't stick around to find out.
ReplyDeleteHa. Yeah, I get that and do the same as warranted.
DeleteMy sister has near perfect face and voice recognition. I have completely imperfect face and voice recognition.
ReplyDeleteHa. Siblings can be so different, can they not?
DeleteI was at a party here years ago when a man came up to me and began a conversation. He recognised me as the only other boy to be crying on our first day at school (aged 5) about 40 years previously. I was amazed.
ReplyDeleteOh, wow. That is amazing.
Delete