News Flash: In the Flesh!

File this under: “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction”

Three years ago, I wrote a piece — published yesterday (link above) — bemoaning the FaceBook culture. The story features my son, Doug, intellectual spawn of Karl Marx.

By virtue of numerous publications and speaking engagements, Doug has accrued considerable cachet on the socialist scene worldwide (suffix: Web). Doug has dozens of fawning followers (virtually speaking) who are just thrilled to meet him (online).

In the closing anecdote, I describe my excitement upon finding a postcard to Doug from a fan, a woman from Ohio. I speak of envisioning a lovely lady sweeping my son off his feet and out of my house.

This much is true. Meaning, this is — in fact — my fantasy. In particular, part two: out-of-my-house-sweeping.

I top off my tale with a fictional twist: the lady would soon be seeing Doug, given she had already planned a trip to our town … to visit her grandson and his family.

As to the remarkable coincidence, I took liberties that strained credibility: the odds that a random resident of Ohio would have connections in our town are surely minuscule.

As it happened, the real-life postcard lady, Sharon, has friends in a nearby city — whom she visited soon after I wrote that story — enroute to meeting up with Doug.

As to Sharon’s family members — unlike the elderly lady I conjured — great-grandchildren are not among them. Sharon is a mere year — and two days — older than Doug.

After months of intense FaceBook friending, Sharon and Doug had grown close, oxymoronically speaking. How would the virtual translate to the real? Awkwardly at best, one would think.

And one would be quite wrong. Doug and Sharon segued seamlessly from one world to the next. Their meet-and-greet marked the magical start of lives entwined. Imagine the odds against that!

Oh, how sweet the sound of off-his-feet-sweeping. How I long to hear the even sweeter sound of out-of-my-house-sweeping.

Hush! Could it be … please! … Ohio calling!

It was good while it lasted. Two years in, Corona quashed their romance.