Magical Moment and the Lady in the Red Hat

We often talk about connections or the degrees of separation.  These phenomena, where someone we know knows someone else that we know, are often the delightful aspects of life. 

There's always a little rush, it seems, with such conversations, almost a validation of some aspect in our connections, which is quite meaningful to us. It's nice to know that a friend or family member has impact enough that someone else remembered meeting them or knows them. 

Well, here's an indirect degree of separation but a fun one. 

A couple of days ago, I posted a photo of 97-year-old Bill Remmers, both on my blog and on Facebook.  Bill's son happened to be in today's morning paper with his golf team, while Bill's daughter Holly is on Facebook.

She's a year younger than I and one of my Facebook friends.  She loved the photos associated with Wilma Erickson's 100th birthday party, especially her dad's, so she commented on the photo album. 

Yesterday, I saw Holly's name while scrolling through my news items.  She had posted a link to a video and had commented about how much she enjoyed it. 

I had some time to spend at the computer,  so I clicked on the link, which was a video produced at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.  

A lady walks in with a harp, starts playing, then one by one and two by two more musicians begin to appear on the scene as a lovely waltz unfolds. 

People sitting around the area start taking note.  A crowd gathers and everyone becomes immersed in the beautiful flash concert---people even dance.  Patients are wheeled in to listen. 

As I watched and enjoyed the "spontaneous" production, I thought of a lady I'd met while advising the Cedar Post back in the '90s at Sandpoint High School.  

I believe David Sawyer was the mayor of Sandpoint at the time, and I think he had called me one morning and asked if I'd like a fellow journalist to come and visit my class.

Of course, I said----always excited to meet other journalists.  

Well, that morning Barbara Sofer, of Jerusalem, Israel, who was visiting Sandpoint for a story assignment for Women's Day magazine,  came to visit.  During that short hour, we both learned how much we had in common.  

She's a year younger than I, like Holly, but she served as editor to her high school newspaper in Connecticut.  She had a son the same age as my son Willie. She loves horses. 

Barbara said a few words about journalism to my students, we visited some more and exchanged email addresses.  

Afterward, we kept up a fairly regular correspondence with some great discussions for several years.  She was even kind enough to endorse my second book Postcards from Potato Land. 

And, I spent a lot of time telling folks about her novel The Thirteenth Hour. 

We even bounced around an idea of co-authoring a book, featuring the two of us a long-distance friends,  leading  our very different lives.   Who knows?  Maybe that's still a possibility. 

Years passed.  Correspondence became more erratic, but we still kept in touch occasionally. 

And, of course, now we're Facebook friends, so we don't have to write to each other to know what's going on in our lives.  We simply scroll through our Facebook news. 

Barbara Sofer is the director of public relations at Hadassah.  So, immediately after watching the video, I shot off a note to her, asking her if she knew about the video.

Turns out she's IN the video, and she was subtlely  helping direct the crowd.  

She appears several times in the crowd, the lady with the red hat and black dress---on the lower left side a lot toward the end.  

I'd say Barbara is the "Mary Faux aka Hat Lady" of Jerusalem.  I don't think I've ever seen any photos of her without a hat. 

Anyway, I wasted no time letting Holly in Oregon, who's the same age as Barbara, know that I knew someone in this video from so far away.

All that aside, it's a wonderful flash concert, very uplifting.  So, I'll leave you with a quick trip to Hadassah and, more than likely with a smile on your face by the time the video ends.