Small World by Konnie Enos

I recently read a friend's post where they mentioned something about proving it's a small world. That’s easy.

I grew up in Pocatello, Idaho. (Pocky to residents.) It isn’t a big city.

We moved away from Pocky about 1977. Then in 1987, I decided to serve a mission for my church. I spent the first month in Utah for training.

A week after I’d arrived at the training center I met a girl who’d just arrived. I got into a conversation with her and learned she was from Pocky. No, she didn’t know me, or my sister.

She did, however, know another sister from Pocky was already in the mission I was going to. I mentioned once going to school with a boy with the same last name. I mentioned his first name and the school we attended. Turns out his little sister was the one serving in my mission.

Another day an older gentleman approached my companion and I, asking if one of us was a Westover.

Of course, I was.

He asked if I knew a Harold Westover.

Fortunately, I knew my Grandpa’s full name, which I told this gentleman while explaining he was my grandfather.  

He told me his mother was one of Great-Grandpa Westover’s sisters.

Another thing I ran into both in training and the mission field, at least three times, was people (also serving a mission) who were from the Pocky “area”.

Inevitably, we had the following conversation after I told them I’d grown up in Pocky.

Me: “Where about in Pocky do you live?”

Them: “Out past Chubbuck.”

Chubbuck is a small town adjacent to Pocky.

Me: “Where past Chubbuck?”

Them: “Past Tyhee Road.”

Anything past Tyhee Road is the reservation but they allow whites to live there.

Me: “How far past Tyhee?”

Them: “Ballard Road.”

They always lived on Ballard Road. The same road my mother’s parents lived on. Yes, they always knew my family.  

After I’d been in the mission field for a few months, they moved me to be companions with my old classmate’s sister. I told her I knew her brother. She wrote him and he remembered us. (Easy to do when they come in a pair.)

Now my companion would often talk about one of her former companions while she’d been in the training center. She only mentioned her last name but was always talking about this young lady knowing everyone, everywhere they went because she’d been a music major at BYU.

One day, the bishop’s wife was giving us a ride somewhere and my companion was telling her about her music major previous companion. This time my companion gave the young ladies first and last name.

I jumped. "I know her!"

My companion: "Everybody knows her."

"Yeah, but not everybody was Sugar-Salem High class ‘82." Yes, she remembered us.

Then, on my companion’s last day in that area, a friend of hers who'd served his mission in Pocky was passing through with his wife. The four of us went out to lunch.

All I knew about them was he was from Virginia and had served in Pocky, and she was from the Pocky “area”.

While this young man and my companion reminisced about his mission, I talked with his wife. Yes, I had the exact same results. I decided Ballard Road was longer than I thought.

I can name other events like this, but I think the funniest happened around the time I moved to my house.

One of the first people I meet at our local church meetings was a lady who, for some unexplainable reason, always had me envisioning a young woman in a cowgirl outfit, prancing by on a beautiful horse.

I asked her where she grew up and places she’d lived. No, I’ve never been to any of them. I could not figure it out.

Then one day, a couple of years after we met, my husband, and I were in her home and somehow the conversation got around to the Bicentennial. (Yes, the three of us are all old enough to remember it.)

This lady proceeded to tell us her Bicentennial story. She was spending some time visiting family. Her aunt, uncle, and cousins had entered their horses in the parade but had ended up one rider short. She was happy to help her family.

Of course, every city and town had parades, but the one she rode is was– you guessed it, Pocky’s.

Where was I for the Bicentennial parade in my hometown?

Watching the parade!

I’m positive I saw her prancing by.

Small world.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.