Sometimes things happen to many of us which are unusual. These things may be beyond our understanding, because the chances of them happening to any of us are so remote and yet they do happen from time to time. They might happen, because of our employment or they could happen just because we happen to be in a place where they were destined to happen. Many of you older people may remember the famous middleweight fighter Sugar Ray Robinson. He was probably one of the best fighters there ever was, pound for pound. As a matter of fact I met another fighter who was very good. He was in the same weight class as Robinson, but he gave up fighting because he could never beat him. One day I noticed Sugar Ray sitting in a public area where I worked. He was quite uncomfortable with people staring at him and bothering him. He had recently lost almost all of his assets due to a crooked financial manager. I went out and invited him into my office and told him he could stay there until it was his turn to be seen. It was a very soft-spoken and charming man and I liked to think we got to know each other pretty well, because he had to come back several times. He had been one of my heroes. It was unlucky for him to be there, but it was lucky for me.

Sometimes bad luck might bring us into contact with someone. Such was the case when I went to work one day. There were huge heavy oak doors where I worked. I couldn’t even guess how much they weighed. It took a some strength just to open one of them. In those days I was in law enforcement and I was told to secure the door. As I went to close it, which was quite a chore in itself, a foot placed itself between the door and the frame. The heavy door made short work of that foot and you could hear the scream of pain throughout the building from its owner. Later on in the day someone came up to me and said do you know who stuck his foot in the door? I said I had no idea and even though he shouldn’t have done it I felt bad for whoever it was, because once the door was moving it was almost impossible to stop from closing. It turned out the foot belong to a politician named Howard J. Samuels. This probably doesn’t mean much to anyone today, but in those days most everyone knew he was running for Governor of New York State and I had almost broken his foot. I must say I expected this to be a huge problem for me, but I never heard any more about it.

Coincidences can be sad, happy or neither, they can just be an unusual event. Once that event occurred in 1922 during the construction of the Hoover Dam. As the cement was being poured for the Hoover Dam in 1922 a man named Tierney fell to his death. He was the first man to die during the Hoover Dam project. This in itself is sad enough, but it certainly isn’t the end of the coincidence, because in 1935 the last man to die in the dam’s construction was also named Tierney. This Tierney was the son of the first man to die. Sometimes coincidences are so great it seems impossible for them to happen. In the year 1900 the name of the King in Italy was Umberto. One day he decided to go to a small Italian restaurant and while talking to the owner he discovered the owner’s name was also Umberto. It turned out both men were born on March 14, 1844 and were both born in the town of Turin. As incredible as this was there is more. Both of the men married women named Margherita and were married on the same day. The restaurant opened up the exact same day as the King was crowned. The next day King Umberto found out the owner of the restaurant have been shot and died. Later in that day the king was assassinated.

When I was in the military I lived in an apartment building before moving to the base. One day we drove to a town about 20 miles away and we were waiting for a light to change when a car crashed into the back of my car. I got out of my car to see what happened and to my surprise the car that hit me was driven by my landlord. Another time I had parked my car on the base in a very large parking lot and it was the only car in there. I heard a knock on my door and when I went to it there was another Sergeant looking very sheepish. First I’d like to say my car was very old and not worth very much money. I asked the Sergeant what he wanted and he contritely said to me I hit your car. I looked at him in amazement, because I realized in this whole lot his was the only other car and I began to laugh and he looked at me and he also began to laugh saying he knew it was incredible. There really wasn’t any damage done, what was another dent in an old jalopy anyway. This reminds me of a story about Ohio. In 1895 there were only two automobiles in Ohio. Somehow these two automobiles managed to get into a collision.

Sometimes when we look back at the macabre it can seem funny. Take the case of an astronomer from South Africa named Danie du Toit. The astronomer decided to give a talk about how death could come from the sky at any time. His audience patiently listened as he went on about all the different ways we could be killed. When his talk was over decided to put a hard candy in his mouth sat down and choked to death.

There’ve been so many cases of coincidences that they are hard to fathom. One example might be people who win the lottery several times while the rest of us never win at all. I think most of us know about the actor Anthony Hopkins. There is an incredible story attached to him. Hopkins was picked for role in the movie “The Girl from Petrovka.” Being a professional he decided to get a copy of the book so he could better understand the role. He went to many bookstores and couldn’t even find one copy. Finally he gave up on the idea and was walking through a park in London and noticed an abandoned book on a bench. He picked it up and to his surprise it was the book he was looking for. Years later while the movie was being filmed the author admitted he didn’t even have a copy of the book himself, because he lent it to somebody with all its annotations and that person lost the book in London. Hopkins produced the book he found and said could this be it? It was.
You just never know when a coincidence will strike.