Wild Party, Wild Story

On By AngeliaIn Random, Wee Wee Wee all the way home!


Back in the early days of living with Sydney’s Dad……this is how we spent our weekends. Our friends would come over we would play drinking fun games. This pic was pre-Syd, pre-marriage taken most likely summer of 1992.

The one in the white shirt with jean shorts waving – that’s Sydney’s Dad Sonny – hi Sonny! Love the 90’s fro.

Most of the people at the table are from Sonny’s work. He worked at Oshman’s in the Six Flags mall. It’s a sporting goods store mainly known as Sports Authority now. A few friends are from my work, a travel agency in Irving. And some are childhood friends (sorry Kristi).

But seriously, are we having a blast or what? Did you find me? I’m the blonde curly smiley person in the back. Yeah, spiral perm maybe?

I am around 21yrs old (maybe younger, shhh). This was our apartment in North Arlington near where Jason lives now. At the time, the Fort Worth Fire hockey team lived there as well. Since minor league hockey was brand new (I think) that was big stuff back then and most likely why we lived there because we were cool like that. (right Sonny?)

This could even be my 21st birthday bash. Who knows? I’m glad to find these pictures because I don’t remember much. 🙂

I’ve lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex for twenty years. I moved around A LOT. But MOST of the twenty was in the Arlington area, where I live now. Arlington back in that day was a town of about half a million and now it’s at least three quarters of a million or quite possibly a million peeps strong.

That’s a lot of peeps. It’s a big place. Getting to point in 3-2-1..Jason lived not far from the party pad. His mom’s house is two streets over where he grew up and would have been living at that time.

I would randomly say as we drove by -there is where I used to live. He surprised me one day by saying, “Me too”. We tried to figure out if we lived there at the same time, if we crossed paths but we didn’t. It was many years later when he lived there.

We did remember the now old movie theater was the exciting new one in our day. It was a big deal when it was built because it was the first all stadium seating. The Target shopping plaza wasn’t half closed but just opened. Time is not kind to these buildings. That area did not thrive.

One day I mentioned Sonny worked at Oshmans. He said, “So did my Mom.” THOSE dates matched. But even more than that, HE worked for Oshmans too, as a teenager. By checking the year and the store, we discovered, not only did Sonny work with his mom, HE worked with Sonny too. Woah!

I am not kidding. Jason and I are three and half years apart. When I was 20 he was a clerk at Oshmans around 16 1/2 years old. This conversation is taking place a few months after we started dating and it’s blowing my mind.

His brother worked at the same store. I thought his brother sounded more familiar than he did, it seemed likely we had met back in the day. We had lunched with him a few weeks back but I couldn’t say for sure that I knew him.

Jason worked in the shoe department. I tried to remember seeing him, picturing him at someone’s knees with a pair of Nikes. Here is a picture of Jason around the age of working at Oshmans with my ex-husband.

I have a snapshot memory of him being behind the gun counter. I don’t know if it’s real or imagined. Still…I really met Jason long, long ago? Really? Well, apparently, and his brother too. After they went off to be in the Marines. Sonny continued working with Jason’s mom for many, many years.

What makes this story wilder than the party? Well as we are having this conversation, I pull out some old photos. We discover the three above. I say, “See, it’s the apartments by your house where we had the parties during your Oshman days. Do you recognize anyone? Most are from the Six Flags mall store.”

You could say that he did. The guy in the PINK shirt in all three pictures, brownish hair in a mullet cut (popular in the 90’s, don’t judge). Jason’s brother Todd in all his party day glory (love ya brother-these pics are priceless).

Can we all hold hands and sing?

It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small, small world.

My future family and I crossed paths eons ago. How WILD is that?

28 thoughts on “Wild Party, Wild Story”

  2. What an amazing story. I never worked in an Oshmans, though I have shopped there. I’ve never lived in Arlington either. But, I was born and raised in Texas and went to school in Marshall. Small world after all. 🙂

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  3. suzicate

    What is the current term…six degrees of separation?! It is a small world indeed, right about now you should be having dinner with my sister!!!! Funny, huh?!

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  6. Jason

    Whoa, Nelly! Yeah, Sonny, Todd, and I did all work together. I bet you even came over to my mom’s house to drop stuff off. She always got people from other stores to do inter-store transfers that way. 🙂

    I worked at that store until I was 18 and joined the Marines. I worked with Sonny in the back (shoes and softlines) and up in the front at the gun counter. You probably did see me there. 🙂 Todd and I had a lot of shifts together.

    Another guy at that store turned out to be Todd’s wife’s cousin. He’s an attorney now, but we knew him as that crazy recieving room manager. His party-boy days are behind him now. (or are they?)

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  8. I LOVE when that happens!! I’ve been at concerts with 70,000 people down here in florida and run into someone I knew as a kid from up north. This has happened multiple times!! Life is so funny. Gotta love it.

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  9. It really is a small world!! The universe was totally setting you up! Funny things like that happen all the time in the area we live in. The kids end up bringing home a friend and it turns out to be someone we used to work/party/hang out with. For awhile Lu even dated my cousins cousin on the other side (no blood relation what so ever). Weird, huh?

    Thanks for sharing such a funny quincky-dink!!
    ♥Spot

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  10. blissbait

    Hey! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this story!!! Brilliant! I have a VERY similar story in my life. Those are AMAZING conversations, aren’t they? It’s cowrazy as all the little ‘lights’ start going off! Thanks for including us. You’re wonderful. Cheers and Namaste. 🙂

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  14. I know that feeling. My husband was one year ahead of me in high school and we never met till after we were both out. I only new he was telling the truth when I met him because I recognized the friend he was with from the way he was leaning against the wall, the same way he did when I would pass him going to my English class.

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  15. Hi, thanks so much for stopping by my blog! I enjoyed your comment very much!
    Your pictures bring back memories of great times for me….ahhh to be 21 again!
    I think I had a spiral perm too back then..haha!

    ~Jen~

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  17. It is a small world. My ex husband and I had been crossing paths for decades but never met. We went to two of the same schools together, we had many mutual friends, we worked for the same company at one point but never met.

    I love the wallpaper in those pictures. you don’t see that anymore, along with the spiral perm.

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  19. WOW what a story… apparently you don’t have to live in a small town (like I do) to have random things like this happen! Cool! 🙂

    Stopping by from SITS… have a blessed day!

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  20. Peggy Nolan

    Ang – this is as wild as Richard “finding” me after 25 years, taking me to introduce me to his ex-wife’s family (because they are HIS family…and now mine, too) and I hear a voice I recognize…Richard’s ex-wife’s second husband…know him! In fact, he was the first person I met when I interviewed for the job I have now. Yup. And he was usually the first person I saw every morning when I walked into the building. We became friends.

    Had no freaking idea he was married to Richard’s ex. (Well, now he’s not…she divorced him in 2007)

    Another strange but true: Richard and I were at my sister’s wedding in October 2008. I see Richard deep in conversation with another woman…my new brother-in-law’s sister-in-law. Turns out, Richard and she used to hang out together after school (long before he met me in high school).

    I’ll join you in a round of “It’s a Small World After All…”

    xo
    Peggy

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  21. Being a Navy kid, we would often meet up with someone from our past – which was always VERY strange at first. I remember being in CCD class in middle school and looking over to see someone that I knew from THIRD GRADE in a completely different state. It throws you off. “Wait, you are a part of my third grade memory from Newport, Rhode Island. You are NOT supposed to be in middle school in Virginia Beach!” People come and go – and I bet if we all looked back, we would see people from today that passed us by quite a lot.

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  25. Man, that is seriously crazy! I can top it though…at my sister’s wedding (like 100 years ago) we were all sitting around the table at the reception pointing people out. My sister points at a lady and says, “Oh, that’s my Aunt.” Her new hubby points at the same lady and says, “Um…that’s my Aunt.” We all sit in horrified silence wondering if it’s possible that we’re related and no one figured this out before now. Thankfully the new hubby’s mom added, “She’s not really your Aunt, honey. You just grew up calling her that.” Small world, yes. Could have been a catastrophically small world. =)
    Mindy
    http://www.thesuburbanlife.com

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  27. All your stories BLOW me away. How crazy are these intricate connections that we had no idea about all those years ago? And what about the future? Will we look back one day and see familiar faces?

    Amazing! Thank you all for commenting and sharing.

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