An amusing synchronicity

On a recent visit to my daughters in upstate New York,we watched “Gone With the Wind” on one of the cable TV stations. A main character in that great movie is Ashley Wilkes. At one point while we watched, that rogue Rhett Butler refers to him as “that stupid Ashley.” After that, whenever Mr. Wilkes appeared on the screen, the kids would yell, “Stupid Ashley!” After the movie’s stirring climax, we retired for the night. For some pre-sleep relaxation, I opened the new “New Yorker” magazine, plus I turned on the radio. On a talk show a gentleman was plugging his book about coincidence and synchronicity. A cartoon in the magazine caught my eye. It depicted two headstones abutting each other--on the left, the deceased’s name is clearly seen as “Wilkes.” The other stone had an arrow pointing to Wilkes’ gravesite, and has emblazoned upon it “I’m With Stupid,” like the old novelty t-shirts.

Just to have the cartoon/movie connection is nice, but to have a guy in the background talking about coincidences makes it a bit more savory.

And then, incredibly, this happened: On the train back to New York City, I had a seat to myself on the Syracuse-to-Albany leg of the trek. In Albany, an attractive woman in her 40’s got on the train and sidled into the empty seat next to me. She began reading the same “New Yorker” magazine I had read a couple of nights earlier. Later, we got to chatting and I asked if she saw that headstone cartoon, and she said she hadn’t. I described to her the coincidence involving a beloved movie, an amusing magazine cartoon, and an off-beat radio show. She chuckled, if somewhat nervously, and then we both went back to our reading. It’s then that I noticed her Amtrak ticket stub on her pull-down tray in front of her. Under the PASSENGER NAME heading and her signature was her last name. The name printed on it was “Wilks.” No “e” in there like “Wilkes,” but certainly close enough.

I think she was too creeped out to tell me that her name related to my coincidence story after I had told it to her. I was a little creeped out too, I must admit, but I love it when Universe plays around with our minds a little bit.