"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
...
Periodically, I go on line and read the obituary listings of the newspaper
in Wooster, OH, the town where I grew up.

Saw a headline listing of a man whose name I didn't recognize but he was
only a few years older so I decided to read the detailed obituary.

When I opened the obituary, the light went on.

Had never seen his last name spelled out so didn't immediately recognize
it; however, when I saw his middle name, "Bingo", I had always known him
to use his middle name.

This guy lived a couple of doors away from me when we were kids after
WWII.

Hadn't seen or heard from him since graduated from grade school and we
went our separate ways.

He had moved to New Jersey almost 40 years ago and will be buried there,
but still had family in Ohio, which is why the obituary was listed in
Wooster.

Thanks to the internet, was able to say goodbye.

A lot of things had to go right for this to happen.

1) I chose to check the obituary listings.
2) My curiosity caused me to read the total obituary rather than just the
headline.
3) The family chose to publish the obituary in the Wooster newspaper.
4) The New Jersey funeral home has a web site that accepts e-mall guest
book signings.

That's a lot of things that had to go right.

Tis a small world in which we live.

Lew

Interesting story , Lew.
We had responded to a multiple alarm fire and when the units were "picking
up" afterwards, a man from the city inspection department came up to me to
introduce himself. "Hi chief" he said, "I'm ________ from the city Insp.
dept., I'll be checking for building structural integrity".
The guy grew up next door to me back in Michigan. He had been employed by
the city (El Paso) about the same amount of time I had and our paths had
never crossed until that day.

Max