Sometimes we rediscover the value of our friends when we encounter them in unexpected places.
In about 1971, My mom and I first started running into my future classmate Tito at the Safeway in north Georgetown. Once we encountered Tito and his mom in the frozen meat aisle (back when I used to eat meat), and I remember delighting in the company of this new friend by acting silly, telling stories, asking questions. My mom commented that I had momentarily abandoned my shyness. Tito and I started at the same Washington Waldorf School at the same time (we were born a week apart), and I saw him every school day and many Saturdays for the next eight years.
As much as I loved having Tito as a classmate, I remember best our atypical adventures, whether it was swimming with really big fish in the pond at his family’s farm, secretly climbing a ladder to the top of the unfinished St. Paul’s Tower in the National Cathedral during the lunch break of the stonemasons, or hearing Tito speak at my wedding to Kate, 33 years ago this Sunday, just a year before he died.
Regrettably, I have forgotten thousands of the school day memories I shared with Tito, but I’m grateful for the unusual moments that my head and heart can summon up as if they had happened last week.
Sometimes geographic improbability will root an encounter in our memories. Once at the Art Institute of Chicago I encountered an artsy UC Davis grad who greeted me with gusto because I supported a GoFundMe that secured him a high-end camera. He told me, “Look what I am holding, Dr. Andy. I am still using that camera today!” As much as I appreciated his gratitude, the first thing I did was find Kate so I could impress her with this photographer’s thankfulness, a lifelong goal.
Other encounters, across oceans, have stayed with me as well. Once in late June of 1996, while I was working on my dissertation, I flew to Stirling, Scotland, on a travel grant arranged by one of my departmental colleagues. We were to give research presentations at a poetry conference where my literary heroes Sandra Gilbert, Helen Vendler and Seamus Heaney were also giving talks.
A Harvard professor and the foremost poetry critic of her generation, Helen Vendler and I happened to have lunch together; she talked to me about the subject of my doctoral dissertation and told me and other conference attendees stories about her teenage love for opera. Later at the conference the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney signed my books and asked me to say hello to our mutual friend in Davis, Jim McElroy.
Anyway, during the long, long flight from San Francisco to Heathrow Airport in London, I stood up to use the restroom, telling the stranger sitting next to me that I hoped to read scholarly books about T.S. Eliot and Robert Lowell during the entire flight. Surprisingly, I encountered my graduate school classmate Kathryn Koo in another section of the plane, so I sat down in the empty seat next to her, and we proceeded to have a four-hour conversation, mostly about literary topics, including the UC Davis English Department.
Finally excusing myself, I returned to my seat and immediately told my row mate that he had better plan ahead, for the line for the bathroom was especially long. And then I went to sleep, smiling to myself over my good fortune. As Oscar Wilde said, “Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.”
Speaking of Scotland, one of my favorite people to encounter unexpectedly in Davis is Catriona McPherson. The Scotswoman first started attending my pub quizzes soon after she moved to Davis in 2010, and she and her VIP team have been my strongest supporters on Patreon. Outside of the quiz, I have encountered Catriona at Stories on Stage, Davis; at writers conferences; at her book events at the Avid Reader bookstore; and on my KDVS radio show. I think she has published about two books a year since I’ve known her, many of them award-winners, so we’ve had plenty to talk about during interviews.
But my favorite place to encounter Catriona is out on the street. Like the aforementioned Oscar Wilde, Catriona always has something witty, insightful, or hilarious to say. Unlike Oscar Wilde, who once told a New York customs agent that “I have nothing to declare except my genius,” Catriona is also self-deprecating, a quality that contributes to her charm and her empathy. In her novel Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom, we learn that “The young are ever so; unable to believe that the decrepitude before it was ever firm young flesh or that they themselves will ever crumble.”
Catriona not only excels at my pub quizzes, but also at her craft as a novelist. The author of 38 novels so far, Catriona has won two Agatha Awards for Best Historical Novel, three Anthony Awards, six Lefty Awards, and two Macavity Awards. Clearly she has no reason to be humble, but she intimidates no one: other authors just adore her. Even those who compete against her for these important literary awards that she keeps winning still treasure her wit, humor, and company.
Unexpectedly, Catriona McPherson and her husband Neil McRoberts, the Scottish equivalent of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce in Davis, will be the featured authors at the Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis on September 4 at 7 PM. Perhaps you would care to join us?
While I can no longer encounter my best friend Tito in the local grocery store, and while I no longer present at poetry conferences in the United Kingdom, I can orchestrate my own serendipitous encounters by featuring America’s foremost Scottish novelist at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis. I know what to anticipate from Catriona at the podium, but my poetry regulars, and perhaps you, will be treated to an evening of surprise and delight, two reasons why we value our friends.
Happy September! Henry David Thoreau said, “Happily we bask in this warm September sun, which illuminates all creatures.”
For Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon. Just look for “Your Quizmaster.
I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. My new paid Substack Subscriber is Anne Da Vigo. Check out her mysteries!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Three questions from last week’s quiz:
Commonalities in Films. What do the following films have in common: 2012, The Hunger Games, The Messenger, No Country for Old Men, Triangle of Sadness, and Zombieland?
Trains. Living from 1948 to 2025, what English singer, songwriter, and media personality charted dozens of hits, the best-known being “Crazy Train”?
Pop Culture – Music. The Beatles released five songs whose titles were made up of a single two-syllable word. One was the cover “Matchbox,” and another was the Abbey Road song “Because.” The remaining three are even better known. Name one of them.
Getting to listen to you read was the highlight of my bike ride, Andy. 🥰
It was nice to read your story about meeting Tito and Anna in your old neighborhood just south of the school.