Chance Meetings?

Week of February 9,2014

 

The beginning of a year is a good time to look ahead and to make some changes. In my case I decided that twelve years working in the same piano store in Poughkeepsie, New York was long enough.

 

I had gone about as far as I could go working in this family-owned store. Besides, twelve years of upstate New York winters was enough. It was time to move to Florida. When I informed Jon Vincitore, the owner of the store, he urged me to stay one more year. I agreed to stay until the fall.

 

In the spring I attended a national conference and met the owners of a piano store in Sarasota, Florida. They invited me down to Florida for an interview. I told a regular customer and former employee of the Poughkeepsie store, John DelVecchio that I was going to Sarasota.

 

“Maybe you’ll bump into my cousin, Ray White. He can play the drum, guitar and he can sing. You’ll like him. He is doing construction right now somewhere in the Sarasota/Bradenton/Venice area.”

 

“Do you have a number I can call or an address?” He had neither.

 

 

In July I flew to Sarasota for my interview with the principles of O’Lynn Callahan Piano and Organ at the Corner of Bee Ridge and Tamiami Trail. The interview went well and I followed them to look at their new store in Venice, a twenty minute drive south.

 

Before the morning was over we agreed I would manage their Venice store in the fall.

 

On the way back up Route 41 I was driving through Osprey when I saw a sign “Condo for Rent.” I stopped and within an hour I had made a deposit on it. I now had a job and a place to stay when I returned. I had accomplished in a half day what I thought would take me several days. Now it was time to look around.

 

I drove into Sarasota Square Mall. Walking through that mall I ran across a piano/organ store with several young men taking turns playing an organ set up in front of the store. As I lingered to watch, a little guy walked up to me and asked, “Can I help you?”

 

“Oh,” I said, “I’m just looking around. I just flew down from Poughkeepsie, N.Y. for an interview,”

 

“Poughkeepsie Huh? Do you happen to know John DelVecchio?” he asked.

 

“RAY? RAY WHITE?”  I don’t know who was more surprised, Ray or me. Turns out he had left construction recently and this was his second day at this store. While neither of us was particularly religious at that point we both agreed our meeting this way, “Must be a God thing.” I still get goose bumps  when I recall that moment.

 

Before moving to Florida I set out to say goodbye to family and special friends living in New York and New England. However, saying goodbye to Uncle Dennis was going to be a challenge.

 

No one knew exactly where he was living; somewhere in the Berkshires was what I was told.

 

One day while driving the Mass Pike to return to Poughkeepsie I intentionally pulled off at the Lee/ Barrington exit for the Berkshires to see if I could find a phone book and locate Uncle Dennis. Besides I was hungry and wanted something to eat. Coming off the exit there is a town to the left and one to the right. It didn’t seem to matter which way I went but something made me feel I should go right. I drove past several fast food drive-ins that I normally would have driven into and continued down Main Street to the end of the business district. There at the end was a diner with a single parking space open right in front.

 

As I walked up the steps to the entrance I saw there was one man sitting at the counter. The back of his head looked familiar. Could it be? It was him! I slipped in and sat beside the man at the counter and said casually, “Hello Dennis.”

He told me he lived in the town to the left of the exit but he often came to this diner. He especially liked the pies here. If I had tried to look him up in the phonebook I would not have found him. He didn’t have a phone. I had a nice visit with Dennis that day and actually returned two weeks later to his home where I presented him with a guitar that I knew he wanted.

 

Ray White and I became partners in a band and played together for several years in Florida. We also both became Christians and Ray is a worship pastor at a church and goes on frequent missions trips to Africa.

 

I play regularly at worship services for a church and I have my own company Worship Media Solutions helping churches with their sound and video needs.

 

As busy as I am, I try to stay attentive to any unexplained prodding or feelings. For example, the other day I left my house to get a haircut when I felt a strong urge to stop at the Living Word Book Store and see Jesse Ramos. So I drove out of my way to the bookstore. In the parking lot I passed a woman walking to her car. I felt I should speak to her but I didn’t know what to say and being basically shy I walked by as she stopped and opened the trunk of a car. As I walked into the store there was Jesse at the counter holding my calling card in his hand and waving his arm at me.

 

“Hey Rick, what timing. There was a gal in here whose church needs your services. She just left.”

 

“She’s there putting something in her trunk,” I said.  He looked out the store window, “Yeah that’s her, how did you know?”

 

How did I know? How do I explain my bumping into Ray White out of the thousands of people who live and work in Sarasota County? What directed me to that diner in the Berkshires that afternoon I found Uncle Dennis? Why did needing to see Jesse Ramos come to my mind when I started off for a haircut?

 

Were these all chance meetings? I don’t think so, not for a minute.

 

Rick Furrow,

Formerly Poughkeepsie, N.Y. via Florida

To Prescott, Arizona