October Times

Do any of you read the "Somewhere on the Masthead" blog of Magazine Man? The link is over there >>>> in my side bar if you're interested. He writes one of my favorite blogs, and over the years has had numerous posts of "October moments" that have happened to him, things which are a little strange or inexplicable, starting from the time when he was around 12 or so and lived in a genuinely haunted house. He spins a good yarn too, so he leaves it up to you to decide how much is fact and how much fiction (the man is a writer, after all).

I've never had any ghostly or creepy things happen to me, but reading his tales made me remember a couple of odd events. Not ghostly exciting, but not coincidence either. For instance, when we lived in San Francisco, I was on my way home after work one day, idlely thinking about dinner that night and so on, my sister was visiting. Suddenly, for no reason I thought of jury duty. I immediately believed I would be summoned for jury duty. When I got home, my sister said to me, right off, Guess what you got in the mail today? And I answered, "Jury duty, right?" And she nearly fell over, because of course I was right. My husband had gotten home before me, and opened the mail, so he and my sister both knew, and I wondered whose thought I picked up on? (I did go for jury duty and was on several cases, but that's another story.)

Also, one time my husband flew (somewhere, I can't remember) on business, this is also when we lived in SF. He traveled a lot in those days, and he didn't like to leave the car at the airport while he was gone, so I usually took him to the SF airport and dropped him off, and when he got home he would call me to come get him. He always had a late night return flight scheduled, but usually tried to finish up business sooner so he could get an earlier flight home. I'd never know just when, or which airline he would be coming in on, it would depend on what he could get, and so I'd just wait until he got to SF and called me to come pick him up. This one trip I remember he had been gone about a week, and was due home that night. I got home about 5 pm and figured I should hear from him soon. And then it suddenly struck me that I hadn't actually had anyone call me all the time he had been gone, and it dawned on me that if the phone wasn't working, he'd be stuck at the airport. He could get a cab of course, but even back then (the 70s) cab fare in or out of the SF Airport was notoriously hideously expensive. When I checked the phone I had a dial tone, and so I called the operator, and asked her to call me back so I could be sure the phone worked, all the while thinking I was getting a little carried away. I hung up, and waited, and no phone rang. When I did pick it up, the operator was on the line, and she said it rang and rang before I answered, but I never heard a thing, so the phone HAD gone out (they came and fixed it the next day). But what to do about going to the airport? I called and asked them to page, in case he had already gotten in, but no one answered the page. So I got in the car and drove to the airport, no even knowing which terminal to go to -- even in those days SFX was a nightmare to get in and out of. I parked, and walked into one of the terminals, trying to figure out how I would locate N when he did arrive, however many hours in the future that might be. I went into the Delta terminal (why? I dunno), turned right toward the gates, and coming around the corner was my husband, luggage in hand, we actually bumped into each other, he'd just arrived and was on his way to call me. I don't know who was more surprised. I mean to say, out of the thousands of people at the airport, different terminals, not knowing which airline, I couldn't even remember where he was flying FROM, to have him be virtually the first person I saw, seconds after I got there? Isn't that -- odd?

Anyway, I have always enjoyed puzzles, crosswords or others.