A synchro on wheels

I’ve mentioned before how synchronicities sometimes just pass us by as if what just happened wasn’t unusual. I had a chance to observe one of these instances a a few weeks back when a meaningful coincidence occurred during a somewhat tense moment  while I was off-road biking with my friend Don.

First, I should say that Don is a retired fire chief, a man whose work was extremely stressful at times, and boring and tedious at other times. He lives here in Wellington and commuted 60 miles to Miami. Lots of firemen live far from their fire stations, preferring rural or semi-rural lifestyles when not on the job. Since they work long shifts, they only make the commute a couple of times a week.

I should add that synchronicities aren’t something that Don normally tunes into. In fact, he can’t recall ever having one. Yet, I witnessed one occur, an event that defied the odds, and he didn’t seem to recognize it. At the time, his focus was elsewhere and what happened, paraphrasing his words, was ‘just one of those things that worked out.’ Yes, but look how it worked out.

Here’s the story. We’d completed our five-mile trail ride without incident…or so we thought. Back in the parking lot, we congratulated ourselves for not taking any tumbles on the ‘technical trail,’ which means there are log piles, nasty roots, steep inclines and drops to contend with, besides an occasional sandtrap.

Then Don realized his cell phone was missing. He’d carried it in a pouch, but had forgotten to zip it closed. So we headed back to the trail, wondering about our chances of finding it. The phone could be anywhere along the trail, maybe invisible in the underbrush.

As we rode along the road that led to the trail entrance, Don suggested that once we were actually on the trail, I should call his phone and hopefully we would hear it. A good idea, I thought, except for one thing.

When Don noticed that I was hesitating, he added: “I hope your battery is good.”

“It’s not the battery that’s the problem, I forgot my phone at home,” I told him, and suddenly it seemed that chances of finding his phone were dimming.

That’s when we noticed a man walking along the sidewalk and wondered if he might be willing to keep calling Don’s number for the next half hour as we circumnavigated the trail. Of course, maybe that guy didn’t have a cell phone with him, either, or his battery was low. Or maybe he had something better to do.

Before I had a chance to suggest the idea, Don rode ahead and stopped the man. As I arrived, they were talking like old friends. Indeed they were. The other man was also a retired firefighter and they used to work together. The friend had no problem calling Don’s number over and over. In fact, the number was already listed among his contacts.

What were the chances of that? I thought. But, like I said, Don seemed unfazed by the idea that another former Miami firefighter, a friend, just happened to be walking along the sidewalk in a fairly out-of-the-way area. We never did find out what he was doing there, but he kept calling Don’s number and within ten minutes of backtracking along the trail, we found the phone. Fortunately, no other riders had come along and ridden over it.

Don was lucky, and he’d experienced a synchro, even though he didn’t know it.