A weird encounter.

This week I went to Florida. My trip was a lot shorter than anticipated and I've been so busy, this being my first convention, I wasn't sure what to expect.
Then convention was an eye opening experience in American politics, even though the industry and a good 30% of the attendees were not from the US, dare I say at least 47% of us... didn't buy into the politics.
I didn't expect the amount of religion or patronism, or quite frankly the racist undertones or the supremacists overtones. That being said, Orlando's lovely. It was the biggest hotel I've ever seen and the duck parade was precious.

K, this is where it gets weird, in a small world kinda way.
On my last night in town, the hotel was a ghost town. I decided to check out a local blues club and try some bbq. Good stuff, but waaaaaay too much. The band was awesome, but since I was alone, I decided to go back to the hotel sooner than later.
Once at the hotel, and being that it was still relatively early, I decided to have a night cap and sit on the balcony, in the gorgeous warm air. It's a waning luxury where I come from.
The bar was pretty empty, and the balcony had a lone occupant.
As I stood pondering where to sit, he said something to me. I didn't catch the first part, but he finished the sentence with eh!
I knew he was a fellow canuck.
He introduced himself, told me where he was from. He's from a small town, just up the road from my city. He graciously bought me a drink and we started to chat. He's older than me, by about 20 years. He had skipped the last day of the convention and gone golfing, so his "Irish skin" was burnt.
I laughed, told him I could commiserate as I suffered from the same affliction.
Once he realized I was Irish too, he told me that his family was from (insert name of town), not northern ireland, not the county or that it was close to Belfast, but the name of a specific small town.
Funny, I said, my mom comes from the same area. Assuming there is only one (insert name of sm. town) in the whole of Ireland.
Then he says, they lived on The Road (a unique name, only heard in a handful of places in the world).
I just about fell off my chair. I knew this house, his name, I've seen that house. Our house, the family homestead is at the end of The Road, their house is the next one over. For centuries his family and mine have been neighbours, catholic and protestant.

My father emigrated from Ireland as well. He's from the south. His first job was for a farmer, as a cowboy, on a ranch, managing huge cattle herds. They'd birth, baptize and brand cows, ride the open range and every so often he would work for other farmers, especially when times got lean. He got to know many of the people in the area and had supper at their tables.
Years later, dad works in town, my mom and dad get married, her mom comes to visit. She wants to see other people from home, one day, granny gives dad directions to a house 'out in the country'.
Turns out.. Dad knew these people, he'd worked for them many times. The woman, the matriarch, the mother was the daughter of the family just down The Road.

The guy I met in Florida, is her nephew. We chewed the fat. He told me about his family, his job. Seems like a fine guy. You know, the kind of guy you'd trust to watch your kids. We talked for an hour or two. We shook hands and off I went.
Tonight, I told my mom the story. She starts to laugh.
Turns out, the reason his father is was in Canada, is that...








He tried to kill my grandfather.
OMG!
That explains why, when I brought up the google maps and showed him where the two farms where, in proximity, he blanched and got very quiet.
It's a very small world.