The Champion of all coincidences

            When I transferred to SUNY Fredonia in 2003 I switched my major from business administration to public relations. This meant that I now had to take about 10 or so communication related classes. Some of these classes were extremely challenging, especially the upper level courses. But there were also a couple that were a joke. This story revolves around one of those classes. I believe the class was called “Mass media and society”.

            80% of your grade was made up from exam scores. The exams always followed exactly what was in the chapters and she always gave us a study guide. Basically, all you needed to do was memorize the answers from the study guide and you would get an A. I think I usually only spent about an hour to study for the tests. The other 20% of your grade was based on attendance. And believe me, we earned that 20%. The lectures were so irrelevant and boring, plus it didn’t help that the instructor spoke like Ben Stein. She spoke with such a mono tone delivery that it was impossible to stay focused. Everybody in the class was always looking up at the clock to see how much torture we had left remaining for that day. Luckily I had become close friends with one of my classmates, so we would just take turns going to the class. You see, the instructor never actually took attendance; she just passed around a sign-in sheet. So he and I would just sign the other one in on the attendance sheet. There were about 60-70 students in the class so it would be difficult to notice if somebody were missing.

            Anyways, one week we were studying the history of mass media. On this particular day the teacher was showing a video. It was a “60 minutes” special from the late 1980’s about the history of the television. At the beginning of the episode, the narrator said something like; “To examine the history of television in the United States we followed the Hudson River to Schenectady, NY.  It was here in 1928 that the General Electric Company became the first to broadcast to a national audience”. While the narrator was saying this, they were showing the Hudson River and some screen shots of the neighborhoods around Schenectady.

            All of a sudden, one of the girls in my class stood up in the middle of class and began shouting; “Oh my god that is my home town! I know all of those places they are showing! This is so weird”! Everybody in the class looked at her because she was so loud and animated about it. Eventually, she sat back down and continued watching the video.

            A few minutes later the narrator said; “We went into this elementary school to ask some of the children how much television affects their lives”. Again, the girl stood up and said; “This is surreal man, when is this video from? I fricken know some of those kids”! Again, everybody was looking at this girl. Some students thought she was just crazy but others were intrigued. I was definitely on board with the ladder.

            Moments later, they went into a kindergarten class and interviewed some children about how much TV they watched and what were their favorite programs. This time the girl went nuts; “Oh my god….that is me”!

            She ran up to the front of the class and pointed at the screen. “Look, right there with the pig tails! That’s me! Oh my god”

            Sure enough, standing right beside the child being interviewed, it was her! She was only a kindergartner, but it was fairly easy to tell it was her. This girl had some very distinguishing characteristics.

            “This is the craziest thing I have ever seen, how do I not remember this”?! She was shouting in disbelief, everybody else was silent. I think it is safe to say that at this point the entire class was in awe.

            I believe I have seen more than my fair share of coincidences in my day, but this certainly takes the cake. The girl was so mesmerized by what she had seen that she left the class. She said she had to go call and tell her mom immediately.

            As soon as she left, all the excitement deflated immediately. This was easily one of the most boring classes I had ever taken, but not that day. I’m happy that it was my turn to be in class that day or else I would’ve missed out on one heck of a spectacle. I can’t imagine if that had been me, I would have probably freaked out even worse than she did.

            Actually, on second thought, it wouldn’t have been possible for that to happen to me. I have far too good of a memory to forget something like that.