" Serendipity"

 

   It just happened, you know? One of those serendipitous coincidences that occur when planets line up or you foolishly store oily rags together. It just … happened.

  Ardis Richardson was looking through the Soup ‘R Market for an egg beater for her mom. Not the electric kind. The turn-the-handle kind. She picked one up and tried it out, causing the friendly little metallic whir that good egg beaters make. What was serendipitous, however, was Anita Campbell not six feet away in the next row thumping pumpkins. As Anita thumped and Ardis whirred, they got in time with each other and Sarah McKinley was checking out kitchen timers and gave one a friendly ding. This got the thumper and whirrer going even more enthusiastically and caused the market’s owner, Annette George, to walk over to the three percussionists, grin, and pick up a brand-new stainless steel funnel, purse her lips, and begin to blow a blues tune on it. It was okay, since she owned the store.

  Annette, it turns out, played trombone back in high school.

  While she was bluesing and Anita was thumping and Sarah was dinging and Ardis was whirring, a kind of blissful harmony began and filled the vegetable aisle with music.

  When they finally stopped, and between gales of laughter, Annette said she could put a regular trumpet mouthpiece in the funnel and get a better tone. Anita said not to say anything to her husband, Dud, as he thought his accordion playing was the only music in the family.

  They agreed to get together each Wednesday afternoon and practice until they got good enough for a concert.

  But they never did.

  Serendipity just … happens … in its own good time.

Brought to you by Slim’s latest book, Whimsy Castle. Now available wherever you find really good books.

 

Newspaper columnist Slim Randles, who writes the weekly Home Country column, took home two New Mexico Book Awards in 2011. His advice book for young people, “A Cowboy’s Guide to Growing Up Right,” took first place in the self-help category, and “Sweetgrass Mornings” won in the biography/memoirs category. Randles lives and works in Albuquerque. Home Country reaches 3 million hometown newspaper readers each week

Slim Randles learned mule packing from Gene Burkhart and Slim Nivens. He learned mustanging and wild burro catching from Hap Pierce. He learned horse shoeing from Rocky Earick. He learned horse training from Dick Johnson and Joe Cabral. He learned humility from the mules of the eastern High Sierra. Randles lives in Albuquerque.

Randles has written newspaper stories, magazine articles and book, both fiction and nonfiction. His column appeared in New Mexico Magazine for many years and was a popular columnist for the Anchorage Daily News and the Albuquerque Journal, and now writes a nationally syndicated column, “Home Country,” which appears in several hundred newspapers across the country.

 

  Huntington Beach News