RE MARKS: NAMES FROM THE PAST PROVE IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL

Getting settled in is never a simple experience. Since most moves accompany new jobs and vice versa, it often takes a while to get one's bearing.

So far my move to the county has gone well. It has been enjoyable meeting people in and around Jackson. I just wish I could spend more than one or two days a week in the city named for Old Hickory. It appears as though I will be in Jackson on Mondays and in Scott County, with Thursday and Friday spent getting the two papers put together. Wednesday looks like a flexible day, where I may be able to pop in where needed.

It continues to amaze me what a small world it is. I keep running into names that sound familiar, only to find that they indeed are the same individuals I remember meeting or reading about in past years. One example occurred when visiting the county's administrative offices. As a Central Methodist college student in the early 1980s, I did a considerable amount of research into the school's sports history. Somewhere in my rusty steel trap of a mind was a notation that the Eagles were coached by a Rodney Miller in the late 1960s. I doubt if my mind had consciously touched on this bit of information for well over 10 years.

Monday I was visiting the county offices and saw the name "Rodney Miller" on a sign for the county clerk. The mental connection was immediately made, but I naturally thought "Naw...no way that would be the same Rodney Miller who coached at CMC." It was.

Later that day I was at the Signal office, when Christy Guilliams came in. Another click of the rusty mental gears. The only Guilliams I had ever heard of was a Rick Guilliams, who was the Dexter Bearcats' first-ever 1,000 yard rusher, back in the 1970s. Once again...bingo! The former Dexter standout was indeed her hubby.

Still later in the week Mandee Stricker, daughter of Valle of Ste. Genevieve Football Coach Joel Sumner, called to invite me (a fellow Southern Baptist) to her church. (Her parents, both of whom I dealt with in my previous job, had suggested the good deed to her.) Her mate's name, she said was Steve Stricker. Gee, thought I, that couldn't be the power-hitting shortstop for Fredericktown during the mid-1980s, could it? Bingo again.

Now if I could just remember vital pieces of information from one week to the next or even one day to the next, as well as I can recall trivial tidbits from my youth! I think they call that a sign of approaching old age.

The little ironies since moving here have been intriguing. Of course, I've had to remind myself, the world is definitely a smaller place for vagabonds like myself who bounce all over the region. Some day I may have enough "constituents" in each county in Southeast Missouri to run for congress. Then again, how many of those acquaintances would actually vote for me might be a different story.