Home Again

After six very long hours of driving, I’m home. It was well into the 90’s all day as I was driving, which just adds to the fatigue. We will post photos from the trip tomorrow night.

There’s a very good, authentic New York-style bagel place across the street from the hotel where I stayed in Harrisonburg. I had breakfast there all three mornings I was in Harrisonburg. This morning, I had my breakfast and lingered for a few moments to finish reading the USA Today. When I finished the paper, I got up to leave. After busing my tray, I noticed a fellow wearing a t-shirt from the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation, so I jokingly said, “Nice shirt.”

The fellow said thanks, and then did one of those deep double-takes. He said, “You’re Eric Wittenberg, aren’t you?”

Now it was my turn to be shocked. I’m not used to be recognized like that, especially not in a random encounter like that far from home. I said that I was, and he indicated that I had met him at the 140th reenactment of the Battle of Trevilian Station in 2004, and that I had actually been standing next to him when he bought the shirt. That blew me away. I meet so many people doing this that it’s almost impossible to remember most of them. I didn’t recognize or remember him at all, so I did not know what to say. I quickly changed the topic and we chatted a bit. He and his wife were on their way to Vicksburg, and had spent the night in Harrisonburg.

Talk about a coincidence…..

It made my day. It made that miserable drive a little more bearable.