What are the odds... ~ November 24, 1983

David Heiller

“What are the odds of that happening?”

I’m not talking about football odds, like the odds of Los Angeles beating Washington 38-9. I’m talking about coincidences, hard-to-believe ones.

I think everybody has a few experiences which they like to tell about that are hard to believe, because they are so coincidental. Here are a few of mine.

The first coincidence I can recall happened when I was in seventh grade. Our teacher, Mrs. Sauer, assigned us to write a report on South America. I turned in a sparkling account of the country, and it read word for word like the report turned in by Jerome Traff, a classmate. It turned out that his family and my family bought the same set of encyclopedias from the same salesman who blew through Brownsville one day in the mid-1950s. That wasn’t much of a coincidence, but it was a start.

The first real coincidence happened in 1975, when I was in Montana backpacking and visiting friends. I needed a ride back to Minnesota, and was prepared to hitchhike. The day before departure, I walked into a bank in Missoula, and there stood a friend from Camp Courage, where I had worked that summer. She was driving back to Minnesota the next day, and she was able to give me a ride. That was lucky.

Another time, my Grandma and I were playing Scrabble at home. We turned all the letters face down, then each drew one, to see who would play first. She drew a blank letter, and I drew a blank letter. There are only two blanks in the game. What are the odds of that happening? Some of you math people can probably tell me.

A strange coincidence happened last year, when I was playing cribbage with my wife, Cindy. I dealt the cards, and threw two face cards, both hearts, into the crib. Cindy threw her two cards in and cut the deck. I turned up the card—the ace of hearts. When I came to count up the crib, I found a royal flush, the 10, jack, queen, king, and ace of hearts.

David "What are the Odds" Heiller
on his skis. Taking up cross-country
skiing was no coincidence! 
"What are the odds?" was one of 
David's favorite refrains. There
was usually eye-rolling that
 accompanied this phrase...

Those were coincidences of chance. Other times, people question coincidences and say, “Maybe it was more than chance. Maybe it was something more that led to that.” Example: A couple of weeks ago, a man left for work from his home in Willow River, heading for Chmielewski’s gas station in Sturgeon Lake. About half an hour later, his dog was scratching at the station door. It had somehow followed him the five miles up Highway 61, and knew just where to turn and where to go to find his master. That dog was guided by more than chance. Lassie fans of all ages know that.

And then there is Providence, a coincidence that some people believe was more than luck or instinct, something from a Higher Order. I had an experience on those lines in 1973. I had been backpacking in Yosemite National Park for a week, when a blizzard stranded me high in the mountains. I struggled, off and on, for nearly three weeks, trying to make it back to the center of the 1,100-square-mile park. On the nineteenth day, with still about 10 miles to go through deep snow, I came to a clearing. There, about 100 yards ahead of me, was a man cross-country skiing. He was just passing through the high country, on a trail seldom used in the winter. Five minutes later or five minutes sooner, I would not have seen the man, who helped me get back to civilization. Was that a coincidence, or was it something more?