It’s A Small World (Or At Least A Small Province)

So after yesterday’s post, I got a comment from a friend that he was related to the Peets who are from the same area as my mom’s family (Mom’s maiden name is Peet). After a few messages back and forth, we determined that the connection was that my mom’s cousin was married to his stepfather’s brother.

Then, later Shea and I were at the beach when Pace came running in from the water: “Dad! Dad! That guy out there says he knows you from university.” I looked out to where he was pointing but couldn’t make out the guy. So I went out for a swim with Pace and as I got closer…I still didn’t recognize the guy. But after chatting a bit, he said we had a few English classes together and he wasn’t sure why he remembered me but he did.

Embarrassingly, I was drawing a total blank on who he was – even after he told me his name and that we’d been in some classes together (I usually think of myself as someone who’s pretty good about remembering people’s faces and often little details about them – eg. sharing a class – even if I’m not the best at remembering names. It was doubly embarrassing because I don’t particularly think of myself as memorable in my undergrad years to be remembered by people, especially in comparison to what I was like in my Masters program where I was much more outspoken and active.)

Then, to put the cherry on top of this random connection, when I tell him I’m now a librarian and that I was responsible for his hometown as one of the rural branches I supervised in my first job, it turns out that his mom was the assistant librarian in that branch and I even attended her retirement party!

(In fact, that experience has become my “go to” story for why working in a rural Saskatchewan library system is a very unique experience. The quick version is that I drove four hours round-trip to do a five minute presentation at that retirement party! Yes, I stayed longer than that but still a four hour round trip, even if I stayed at the party for an hour, is something you simply don’t end up doing at an urban library system!)

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