Friends and co-workers from a career full of memories got together today.  We were together because one of us wasn’t there.  He died two weeks ago.

And it’s made me think about how much of life is happenstance and coincidence.  If I hadn’t answered the phone I probably would never have had the chance to come to San Diego and work with these folks. If I’d stayed home one night instead of going out, I never would have met my wife.  Some people will say “it’s meant to be.”  I think I careen through life and things happen by coincidence and happenstance that control the place I live, the people I know, the friends I have, even my family and the people who matter to me.

If I hadn’t gotten the job in San Diego I never would have had the chance to get to know Jack Moorhead.  I knew him mostly at work – and a few parties here and there.  But along the way I learned about the care, feeding and rearing of tortoises – though I never saw his tortoises.  I learned about his chocolate Labradors and later his pug.  I got several recipes – most with sautéed garlic.  I learned about boat building, though I never saw his boats.  I heard about his bartending days.  I learned about the Pacific Crest Trail without ever setting foot on it.  And I got to know his family through his eyes.

I can’t imagine that Jack learned anything from me.

And there were a few things I learned from him that turned out to be just Jack keeping a straight face.  I believed some of them, but he usually would smile and shake his head and say “no of course not” and we’d laugh.  We laughed a lot as I recall.

Jack had a very quick, sharp sense of humor.  It probably says more about me than it does Jack that most of the stories I remember weren’t entirely fit for polite company.  I was up on the desk one morning looking at his story list when he reached into his lunch and started to slice a fresh pear just as the morning tape editor walked by.  She looked over and said “oh nice pear Jack” and just under his breath he said “yours too.”

One day he told the morning meeting that a crew was going to go to arraignment court because a dentist had been arrested, accused of molesting his female patients when they were under anesthetic.  Jack said he had cautioned Lorraine to be aware if the dentist ever said “now you’re going to feel a little prick.”

I saw Jack for the last time a few months ago.  Cheryl and I were going to a yogurt shop in the neighborhood and Jack and Lorraine happened to be at the restaurant next door for dinner and he looked out the window just as we walked past.  He got up from the table and followed us to the yogurt shop, bumped into me a couple times and told me to watch where he was going.  We talked for not long enough before he had to get back to his dinner.

A week ago we took our granddaughters to the yogurt shop.  I looked carefully through the windows of the restaurant, and thought about the coincidences that turn out to mean so much.