Coincidences, I've had a few.

I've always felt that what we often call a "coincidence" is more than that, some sort of cosmic signal from the universe that....

Well, what is being signaled is what I can't figure out.

This Saturday past was a perfect example, with not one, but two, seemingly coincidental moments.

I was in my old home town, Kennett Square, to meet with relatives--quite old relatives--as part of an effort to trace my Irish grandfather, my father's father, back beyond these shores....wait, scratch that. It is likely going to be impossible to trace the old guy any further than I already have (although a DNA test I just took might help change that); what I was really getting was some understanding of his life while he was here.

But all that is a story for another day. This is about, first, what happened while I was interviewing a 95-year old man (in amazing control of his senses and perfectly aware of the world around him--at one point, he regaled us with his opinions of the TV sitcom, Two and and Half Men),and a chance remark of his led me to tell a story.

I told about a man who had come up to me after I had done a beer dinner at The Whip Tavern, an English-style pub which is near Kennett Square and popular with the horsey crowd out that way, a funny story about his plans to buy the million dollar estate across from his own million dollar estate and tear it down to create his own polo field. No sooner had I finished that the old man's son, a guy in his Sixties, I'd guess. piped up "I know that guy" and then told us his current status, under investigation for running a Ponzi scheme on a lot of the horse set and ruining a couple of lives. Pretty astonishing, I thought, that I'd tell this anecdote I've pulled out to amuse people for years and somebody in the room to whom I am distantly related would know who I was talking about.

Strange enough, but the next "coincidence" was truly weird. I was accompanied on my venture by my cousin, two years older than am I, and we had lunch with one of her high school classmates, same age as she. As we were talking, the friend, now a widow, mentioned her late husband and said I probably wouldn't remember him. I said I recalled his name. She replied that "most people know him as the guy who killed a guy in a baseball game in high school." I damned near dropped my fork and my pint glass (well, at least the former). I had, not three days before, been involved in a conversation wherein, for reasons I cannot recall, I was moved to mention that "I knew a guy in high school who was pitching and killed a batter on the other team with a fastball that hit him in the temple." That might have been only time in decades I ever even thought about that incident and now here I was having lunch with his widow.

To me at least, strange, strange occurrences. Whatever message there might be, as I said, is lost on me.

One more thing: later that day, I was in the living room of an 82-year old cousin and her 85 year-old brother and Cousin Lois and her friend. For one of the few times in recent years, I was actually the Youngest Person in the Room.

And, let me tell you, seeing all those members of my family line rolling along just fine in their eighth and ninth decades was pretty damned encouraging.

My money is still on Kristofferson. [Update]

One of life's great mysteries revealed?

No, it remains a mystery. 

The wildest Villanova/West Virginia basketball game ever.

Villanova plays an important game starting in a few minutes against West Virginia in Morgantown where, I believe, they've not been victorious is over a decade. As any VU/West VA game always does, this one inspires memories of a great and controversial battle between the two back in the day.

West Virginia came into town undefeated, 11-0, and ranked #1 in the country to play an, at best, mediocre Villanova team at the Palestra. Somehow, Villanova was up by ten at the half and by 14 with eighteen minutes to go, at which point a heralded but not yet established West VA sophomore named Jerry West (whatever became of him?) started to take over the game. He scored 15 in those final minutes, ended with a total of 37 for the game.

With seconds to go, West made his final basket to make the score Wildcats 75, Mountaineers 74. The ball dropped through the basket and rolled back to the stands where the Villanova player who was to pass it in could not find ot while official Dan Smeddy started counting the five seconds allowed for a pass in. Villanova captain Tom Brennan was screaming for a timeout which Smeddy ignored but fellow official John Stevens did call it. Smeddy had his back to Stevens and continued counting, then took the ball and gave it to West Virginia without objection from Stevens. 

With two seconds to go, West VA forward Lloyd Scharrar made a jumpshot from the corner to win the game, 76-75. Pandemonium ensued.

Sports writer Bob Vetrone, who was the guy who covered Philadelphia's Big Five college teams, jumped over the scorer's table and chased Smeddy and Stevens across the floor and into the dressing room. The officials later had to be escorted out of the building by a police squad because irate fans were still waiting outside.

A friend, with whom I was discussing this last night, says he remembers reading in the papers that Villanova coach Al Severance told the press "the game was closer than the score indicated." I never saw that but Severance was noted for more than the occasional malaprop and it's a great line either way. My lead in the game story for the weekly Villanovan was

"Yes, West Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..." 

There was a personal postscript, three or four years later.

I was playing in a YMCA basketball league in center city and we were given a budget to hire an official for each game, usually, in those simpler times, one of the guys who did the Palestra games. We were in the playoff and the official that night was...Dan Smeddy.

Late in the game, one of the players on other team grabbed a reboud and through a long pass the length of the court to teammate who was cherry-picking. I had stayed back with him and what I did is illegal now but wasn't then, I don't believe. He was much taller than I so I waved my hands wildly in front of his face to try and obscure his vision and Smeddy blew the foul. He was still at the other end of the court and thought I had hit the guy on the arm.

We lined up along the foul line and Smeddy took the ball and, before handing it to the foul-shooter, asked "Is everybody ready?" And I responded, "Hey, Dan, that call was worse that the West Virginia one."

He laughed his ass off and threw me out of the game.