SMALL WORLD

It was 1977, and it was the end of my senior year at Penn State. I realized that I started to find about finding a job. By the time I went to the career services, I had liked Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, but they didn't have any interviews for the savings open, so I put it on my waitlist.

Later in a month, I had a call that there had been snowing on the original interview and had them postponed. The Career Service had some new appointments, and would you like to come in for an interview. Of course, I did. 

They did send a second interview at East Hartford in Connecticut, and they did make an offer, and I started in July of 1977 as a Financial Management Trainee.

My older brother, who lived in New York, went with me to help me find a place. We found an apartment, and it was not great. We did not realize that the airport runway started on Monday mornings. Many years later, after I left, the University of Connecticut had turned it into a football stadium.

My first assignment was a group in Financial Information Systems. The idea was to stay for six months and then moved to different roles for two years. 

The PWA facility was a vast population.

One of the early founds out was that they had soccer intramural with about six teams. I sent my name to get on the team. I ended up with a player who was an All-American at the University of Connecticut. His name was John Sahnas. We played for a few years, working well together, and caused many scores and "championships."

Another team played other businesses in Hartford, and they were very competitive and aggressive.

During my first assignment, my work colleagues mentioned that one of the finance management trainees was also from Penn State. His name was Doug Karns, and he started with PWA about six months early. I did not recognize his name. One of his teams asked me to walk over with him to the other building. I didn't realize that it was about a mile to cross the plant!

As soon as I walked to Doug, I immediately him from Penn State. We were in the same dorm during our Freshman year. It was on Tenor Hall, and I was on the second floor, and I think he was on the third floor. I played soccer and was busy with playing and studying. I knew Doug, but we were not friends. After my Sophomore year, I moved to a fraternity. He was an accounting major like me, but we hardly saw him.

As it turned out, we became good friends for a few years when we stayed at PWA. He got married in 1978, and I went to the wedding. Of course, he had a football game at PSU vs. OSU that night. PSU won. (Coincidentally, my son went to his marriage in 2019, and they also had a game with PSU vs. OSU. And again, PSU won).

I stayed with PWA for about five years and made a lot of friends. Many are still friends today.

I left PWA, and Doug went too, and we lost track. We recently connected and discussed how much fun we had in those days.

When I worked in Covidien, our headquarters was in 15 Hampshire Street, Mansfield, in Massachusetts. I had an apartment during the week and worked on to the weekend to Philadelphia. I worked for Covidien from 2007 until 2011. Almost every Friday, I would take a flight from Providence Airport at T.F. Green Airport. It was small, and it was convenient to use to get on the flight. It took about 35 minutes to send from Mansfield to the airport.

One day, I took my flight, had a short bag, and went down through the security checkpoint. My bag was that I had for my Philadelphia Phantasy when my son and mom had sent me when I turned 50.

One of the TSA agents asked if I played for the Phillies. I said no, but I was a Philly fan. The other agent said that he was from Philadelphia and had grown to school there. I asked him, “where did you go to high school.” He said, “Archbishop Carroll in Radnor, PA.” I looked at him and said I went to the same place. We both looked at him, and at the same time, I said “Mark Alexander” and, he said “Ed Nunez.”

Mark and I were good friends at Carroll, and we both played on the soccer team. We had lost track after we went to college. He told me that he had some medical issues. He told me that he had a severe brain stem stroke at age 44.

I needed to move to the checkpoint, and he told me that he had a chance to get a break and he would connect after my checkpoint. We discussed some time talking and connect our emails.

Every once in a while, he would see him and say hello.

Saw him a while ago at a reunion with our high school soccer team and our coach Tom Gilmore. It was a lot of fun, and I was hoping to do it again soon. Unfortunately, Tom passed away recently. After my stroke, I spoke to him and wanted to make sure I was working hard on my Aphasia stuff.

From October 2007 until December 2011, I worked for Covidien in the Boston area. My first apartment was in Quincy, but after one year, I moved to Wellesley. As usual, I commuted back to Philadelphia every weekend. Occasionally, Becky would come back to Boston for the weekend.

On Sunday in 2008, Becky had looked at the newspaper and said, let's see some open houses in Wellesley. I was not interested in buying here, but it was a nice day, and Becky liked to see homes.

Every house we saw the same people. One of the men said to the realtor, "I was following the other couple with the Lexus."

As we left, I noticed that the man following us had a Pennsylvania tag on the vehicle. I asked him if he was from Pennsylvania. He said, "yes, from Philadelphia." Becky and I said that we were both from Philadelphia.

Becky and I introduced ourselves, and he said his name was Patrick Chamber. He told me that he was the basketball coach at Boston University and that he had been an assistant coach at Villanova. My two brothers went to Villanova, and I was a huge fan. My high school friend, Joe Rodgers, played at Villanova. Patrick knew who he was. I told him that I was a soccer player and did not want to play at Villanova, I went to Penn State. He gave me his business card and told me to come to see a game sometime. Of course, I never did. 

In June 2011, I heard that Patrick Chambers had gotten the head coach at Penn State. 

In December 2011, I left Covidien and went back to Philadelphia. 

In fall 2011, we went to a field hockey game. I told the story about Patrick to my friend Char Morett, who is the women's field hockey coach. Char said that she and Patrick became good friends since they had grown up in the Philadelphia area. She said that Patrick would probably stop by the game and make sure Ed said hello. 

When I saw Patrick, I told him about my story in Wellesley with my wife. He remembered me immediately. 

In June 2020, I had a stroke and had been working with Aphasia. I knew that Becky had told Char about me, and she had called me several times to see how I was. Char told me that at recent coaches meeting about Ed's stroke. Patrick asked her if it would be okay to call Ed. He was very supportive and told me to call him if I needed any help.

My friends tell me that I am hardworking and determined on my Aphasia. Their friends made me inspiring me to keep positive working on getting ahead. Thank you!

After the first game, Philadelphia Phillies lost to Toronto.  The next night was game number 2, and I went to the same bar that I went to last night with the same fans.

The guy next to me was clearly a Phillies fan. As part of what I usually do, I asked him where he lived. He was from Yardley, PA, outside of Philadelphia, and told me his name was Ken Wensel.

I was shocked, another coincidence in Hong Kong. I told him that we were building a house in Yardley. It would be finished in December. I told him that I just took a job with Campbell Soup. He gave me his business card and told me to call him when he got home. As always, I never called him when I got back.

About a few years later, my son, Bill, was playing at a soccer game. I talked to one of his friend's parents that I have met a few times. He asked me where I worked. 

I told him that I worked at Campbell Soup.

My friend said that he had run into someone from Campbell Soup in Hong Kong. 

I asked him, "was he watching the world series game?”.

He looked surprised and said "yes."

"It was me."

In October 1993, I started at the Campbell Soup company. My first trip from Campbell was to go to Melbourne, Australia, and then to Tokyo. From there, I went to Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, on Sunday morning, I went to the bar at the mall near the hotel. I found many people to watch the World Series with the Phillies and Toronto. 

I started talking with someone and asked him where he lived. He said he was from Wayne, PA. I asked him where he went to high school. He said Conestoga. 

I immediately knew the area, so I asked him if he knew Bill, Sue, or George Hahn. I knew Bill and Sue were brother and sister from Penn State, and they had a brother, George.

The friend was shocked. He said, "I am George Hahn." 

We realized that George's sister, Sue, was married to Dan. Dan was my brother Ricardo's best man.

To think that this story traveled all this way from Philadelphia to Hong Kong is synchronicity.

I had another story the next day on someone else, but I will add it again next time.

Aphasia Notes: My aphasia makes my language weird. 

I was trying to find his high school. I knew came out as “Congrigagen.” I knew it was wrong but I put this as a placeholder. When I found it on googles as Conestoga I knew I was close.

The second was my friends last name. All I had was “Loon.” My wife said “Hahn.” Again, very close.

This is an area of my working on aphasia and something about Verbal Fluency. Understanding is figuring this out.