Hello, everyone! Christmas is just around the corner, isn’t it!? Amazing how quickly time passes us by? It seems to fly by quicker and quicker with each passing day, right?

Today I’d like to talk to you a little about something that happened to me awhile back on one of my birthday’s. I can’t remember how old I was turning but it couldn’t have been more than 9 or 10 – maybe even younger. It was a while! Anyways, what made me thing ok this moment was watching an episode of Duck Dynasty last night.

Have you ever seen the episode where Uncle Si wins the purple gorilla at the Chuck E. Cheese type place? It was hilarious! Willie said that he took John Luke there when he was 8 years old and now John Luke is like 18 and that gorilla was STILL there! Haha! But he did in the end win it some how, $200 worth of tokens helped I’m sure.

Anyhow, I was at a Chuck E. Cheese for my birthday one time and there was this kid there and I swear, when he’s able to. He probably is now, but this kid could score the jackpot every time. It was crazy! And he’s probably turned out to be one the best gamblers there is. No joke, although…. Hopefully not. But I guess that’s what you get when you give kids their own Casino.

So he asked me if he could use some of my tokens. I was at a machine having quite a bit of trouble with it and getting frustrated. I wanted some tickets! Well, he said to me that if I let him have some tokens to play he’d get me tickets. And sure enough he did. He helped me win quite a lot of tickets and he even showed me how to play the game a little better. I don’t where he came from or who he was but it was crazy. I loved it actually.

That’s just another thing I look back on in my everyday life. Another situation that where I ran across someone that I am reminded every day. Like I said really is just crazy how that works and you can’t help but wonder where those people are now? I mean, it just makes you wonder: How did they turn out? Let me share another store while I’m on this..

Encounters With Strangers…

That’s what this blog post should have been titled in the first place. There is a point. It seems to me that all the ‘kid’ strangers I ran into as a kid were incredibly nice to me. Now we all know it could have been a very different story right? Because back then too – but even worse today – kids can probably be the meanest people on earth? Right? It could be quite accurate. Onto my next encounter though.

This one isn’t gonna be as long… I was at a Wal-Mart from my hometown around the bootheel of Missouri, not IN the bootheel just up above it a little. And I was in the electronics where I still usually go first when I go to any store. That is, though, if they even have that section. I was looking around and there was this blonde guy and I can’t remember how it is that we got to talking. I think we were both having some trouble finding our parents. His Dad and my mom and grandma. We talked quite a little bit – strange to me how that even happened.

We were sitting at the front on the bench waiting for his dad to come and he did then he left and that was last time I ever seen him. I don’t remember his dad much at all. But that crazy experience has stuck with me for years now, that had to be just a little before or after the encounter with the kid at Chuck E. Cheese.

Either way, little encounters like that after all these years just gets me to thinking every now and then: where are those people? The kid I met at the kid casino or the kid I met at Wal-Mart who was looking for his dad? The guy who worked at the zoo? And so many more little encounters with strangers.. Where are they? Are they still nice?

Hopefully…

What are some of your little encounters with people that seem to have crazily changed your life? Do you ever wonder about that person you met while out at town shopping for dinner? That crazy person, or that person lit up the room?

Think about that…

And those ‘good’ encounters with strangers. That will remind you that, maybe just maybe. This world isn’t so bad after all.

God bless y’all!

Sincerely,