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From Maria Trimarchi, Assistant Editor — Community:

"You live in Williamstown? Again?"

That's a question I hear too many times. You see, I grew up in Williamstown, so what the people who ask me this mean is, how can I live in the same small town in which I grew up — isn't that too familiar?

Perhaps some of the faces are familiar — like seeing an ex-boyfriend in Dunkin' Donuts and my sixth grade social studies teacher in the bank — but what people don't seem to understand is that I run into people I know almost everywhere I go, so familiar faces in Williamstown are nothing for me to get concerned about.

For example, just this past weekend I went to visit some friends in Boston. (I try to get out of Williamstown very often, because, after all, I did spend my formative years here.) Before moving back to Williamstown, I was living in New York, and I haven't been to Boston in about three years. Furthermore, I have been to only one liquor store in Boston — Blanchard's, and I think it's actually in Allston. Anyway, I revisited Blanchard's this weekend, which I found to be kind of strange since it's not like Boston has such a shortage of places to buy alcohol that it's imperative to frequent the same store.

So, there I am in Boston, in the parking lot of Blanchard's. I look around; this all seems like a bad case of deja vu. We go into the store, looking for some merriment, and I pass by the beer coolers and head straight toward the wicked good substances, like gin, rum, and vodka. I'm talking to one of my friends, and I'm not paying much attention to where I am walking. Suddenly, there's a man in front of me — he's in a hurry, and he's carrying a large case of beer. I glance over at him (after all, he did just cut me off), and I turn back to my conversation. Then, it all becomes clear: that man is no stranger to me.

"I swear I know that guy," I say to my friend.
"Sure you do," he replies.
"Okay, I'll show you," I snap back at him.

I walk over to this man, who is now just standing next to the coolers. "Excuse me," I say. "But, is your name Jeff?"

It turned out, yes, this was Jeff, a good friend of my high school boyfriend. I hadn't seen him since 1991, but I had to come into the one liquor store in Boston that he manages.

I could go on about reuniting with Jeff, but honestly, it wasn't that exciting. The best part was the oddity of the situation, not the meeting itself. We were never that close in high school, and I had a theory that he was afraid of girls, anyway. What writing this letter has really got me thinking is: Truly, I really do run into people in the strangest places.

• When I was a senior in high school, I went to Disney World. Our flight was not direct — we flew from Albany, NY, to Cincinatti, OH, to Orlando, FL. In the Cincinatti Airport, I was in line to get a cup of coffee. I bought my java, turned around, and was facing Mary Alice, another student in my senior class. Her flight had been redirected into Cincinatti due to fog.
• At the very beginning of my relationship with boyfriend, Brian, I was still living in New York. I went to visit him in Connecticut for a few days, and one night we decided that ice cream was to be had — so off to Dairy Queen we went. At the Dairy Queen in Meridan, CT, I stepped up to place my order (I like to get a banana with chocolate sauce on it), and was waited on by my best friend's former college roomate. Supposedly, she had moved to Texas after graduating, but obviously that never happened since schlepping soft serve in CT when one lives in TX would be one hell of a commute.
• One day my friend Drew and I pretended to be tourists in New York City, and toured the Empire State Building. We waded in the sea of people, went to the top, flapped at the pigeons, oohed at the fake grass on top of many of the surrounding buildings, and, as we crossed the lobby to leave, bumped into a few people I went to college with — people who were supposed to be in Moscow. Go figure.

Okay, so maybe I need to accept that what I consider to be the oddities of life are just commonplace, but I certainly don't see this phenomenon happening to anyone else I know. The moral of my story is that I really don't know many people in Williamstown — to find my friends I need to go to airports and liquor stores. It's really just a small, embarrassing, and odd world after all.

Maria (4/17/98)

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Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the archive.