Supermarket Serendipity

Wednesday morning in the bakery section of the supermarket. After a few brief seconds, I realized I’d grabbed someone else’s shopping cart. I turned back and saw an elderly gentleman (my age, maybe?) asking a shopper if she’d taken his cart. I went up to him and explained I was the culprit and returned his cart.

He looked very relieved and explained he was worried about a package that was in a shopping bag. He held up a small gift-wrapped package.

“What is it? I asked.

“It’s a book written by my father. I want to give it to a foreign visitor.”

My writer’s antennae immediately went into high alert. “Did you buy it here?” I asked.

“No, I had it at home. Just had it wrapped here.”

“What’s the name of the book?”

“Aldea Blanca. White Town. My father was born in a small town and later immigrated to Chile Chico in the Chilean Patagonia by Lake General Carrera.”

“Oh, I know where that is,” I said.

“My father wrote about the two towns, where he was born and grew up in Syria and the town in Chile where he made a new life. He was very grateful to Chile for the opportunities here. He raised his four children in Chile Chico and made certain we had a good education.”

“I’m also a foreigner,” I said, “and have written two books about my life in Chile.”

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“The United States.”

We both moved on to our shopping. But then I stopped and turned back to him, pulling out my cell phone.

“What was your father’s name? Where can I find the book?” I noted down the name in my cell phone.

He said I might find the book in a university bookstore, that it wasn’t a big seller. I thanked him and headed towards the yoghurt aisle.

Later I saw him in the vegetable section, buying one avocado.

Back home, curiosity drove me to Google. I looked up his father's story. He arrived in Chile in 1914 and moved to remote Chile Chico in Patagonia in 1933. There he became an active member of the community, helping to create an airplane landing field with shovel and pick, creating a public library in the living room of his home and opening the town's first pharmacy. One of his sons became a pharmacist, but I don't know if he was the gentleman in the supermarket.

What a wonderful encounter with history.