Tell us a true story that proves it really is a small world after all.
Submitted by havybeaks.
I was a Navy brat growing up – I lived up and down the east coast, and spent a year out in California and another couple in the Pacific Northwest. I started High School in Northern Virginia at W.T. Woodson high school, where I attended my freshman and sophomore years.
My sophomore year in school there, I joined the choir and the select vocal ensemble. The director thought it was cool that my father was in the Navy and that I had moved around so much. He mentioned that they had just had another Navy brat (named Jeremy Pelstring) move out west to finish off high school and it was almost like I was taking his place. I had a great time with the various vocal groups I was in that year, and decided I'd sing for the rest of high school.
Fast forward a year when my father's tour of duty was up, and he was given a command out in Bremerton, WA. We moved to Bainbridge Island, WA (just across the Puget Sound from Seattle). When I got there, I auditioned for the school's Vocal Jazz Choir. Of course, during the audition I answered some questions about where I was from, background, etc. Imagine my surprise when I found out Mr. Jeremy Pelstring had been a member of this same group I was now auditioning for, singing with them for the last two years before he graduated and went off to the US Naval Academy!
Now, you may be thinking that this isn't quite as coincidental as it sounds, seeing as Jeremy and I were both dependents of fathers serving in the Navy, and it always seems like Navy families are bumping into one another. That may be true. So I'll up the ante once more:
I graduated from Bainbridge High School in 1997 after being accepted to the University of Virginia school of engineering. I attended school there and graduated with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering in 2001. While doing a google search to support this post, I found out that this same Jeremy Pelstring graduated from the US Naval Academy and then went on to get his masters degree in mechanical engineering….at the University of Virginia, class of 2001. Jeremy ended up singing in one of The University's a capella groups (one that I had auditioned for once), and we most likely attended classes in the same buildings. I never really got to know him personally, but it is doubtless that we nodded to each other in recognition in the halls in passing.
Small world, no?
Possibly related posts (auto-generated):
July 3rd, 2007 on 9:40 AM
It's the Twilight Zone up in here, yes?
July 3rd, 2007 on 9:48 AM
I'm fulling expecting a comment here eventually from Jeremy telling me that he has moved into my house and married my wife.
July 3rd, 2007 on 10:02 AM
creepy. very odd indeed. sometimes the world is almost too small – it's like you kept living in his shadow. ooooOOOOoooo
July 3rd, 2007 on 10:03 AM
You two are the same people… HE'S YOUR CLONE! I'm sure of it. It all makes sense… The Navy experimented on the officers offspring, therefby creating several replicas of the same person scattered all over the world.
For our sake I hope the original was good looking. :-P
July 3rd, 2007 on 10:51 AM
Good story — it'd be good to see a little animation of where you were and he was at a given time and how he kind of stalked you — er, I mean — ended up in the same places. Crazy.
July 3rd, 2007 on 11:07 AM
yes and if you do actually speak or communicate the world could explode. it's that whole space-time continuum thingy…like in back to the future, where mj fox couldn't talk to his former self. this is the EXACT same thing, but in real life!
July 3rd, 2007 on 11:08 AM
@Steve – I'm lousy with animations, but I bet I could work up a multiple-line timeline…that's an interesting idea – I may work on it…but AFTER I get this drawing done. The last thing I need is another project to help me procrastinate on my day-before-a-holiday workday.@Latte – Sorry, I can guarantee he's not my clone – his family is all blond-haired, while mine's all brown (and neither are dye jobs). However, I DO have a clone. I saw him a couple times walking around the Penn State main campus while my parents were living in State College – I swear I was staring at myself walking down the street. I was only 19 at the time, and I was seriously considering going up and asking if I could "borrow" his driver's license – it would have been the perfect fake ID – nobody could have told the difference between us without a DNA test.Actually, if he was older than me, that would make me HIS clone. Hrm. I wonder if I'm the evil clone bent on usurping my source's life, or the good clone who sacrifices himself to save my source from death at the hands of the evil clone? Frankly, I'd rather not be either. Can I be the third clone who stands objectively on the sidelines and sips his cup of coffee?
October 22nd, 2007 on 1:27 AM
Well, i don't think we've ever met, but this is Jeremy, no joke.
October 22nd, 2007 on 1:31 AM
So, this is jeremy, no joke. Don't think we have ever met, but i think michael erhlich has mentioned you in the past :) this is a very wierd note, my aunt sent it to me. pretty funny, it is a small world, just didn't know you followed me to BI and UVA.
we should def chat sometime, drop me a note if you get a chance, jegerstring@hotmail.com – jeremy
April 2nd, 2011 on 7:32 PM
Hi Ross, Just saw this when I googled the choir at Woodson. An added note was that the director at BI had asked me if I could find a replacement for Jeremy in the Jazz Choir – a tenor of course! When I talked to your mother and found out you were coming in from Woodson I called him and asked how he would feel if I could get him a tenor from the exact choir that Jeremy had come from. I then told him and he was amazed and happy, adding that he knew the quality you would have just having been trained by the same director. Small world again – my brother is a graduate of Penn State and we all have spent time there, having grown up in PA.
maybe….