Steven L. Smith, Bellingham, WA Home Inspector (King of the House)

I will recount a recent and story, of coincidences, that is really quite amazing and amusing. People who take part in Active Rain are often writing about someone they met at Facebook or Twitter or at Active Rain. My story of mistaken identities might take the cake.

About a year ago, I had a comment left on a blog post that I had written. It was just a nice little comment and it came from a young female realtor in Moses Lake.

This is the photo she was using. You might have noticed Heather Adkinson here at Active Rain.

She had picked up on, and added to,  a comment I had made about Bellingham and Lynden. She said that she was raised in this area of the state and that her dad was a builder. I thought that interesting, but did not think anything more about it. She did not tell me her last name had been Smith.

We commented back and forth in blogs from time to time. Then a couple weeks back, I made a comment on her blog about having owned a radio station. She sent me a private message that it sure was a very small world because she had an older cousin, named Steve Smith, who used to own a radio station in Bellingham!

Okay, something is weird here, Heather. I spent years in local radio, know who owned all the stations back to about 1940, and I was the only Steve Smith who ever owned a Bellingham radio station. I am starting to think that Heather must be my relative and neither one of us knows it. I mean, as an older man you feel weird writing to some young woman and telling her that you are her relative, maybe.

You have to understand this side of the Smith family. Relationships can be hard to figure. My dad was older when he married my mom. He had a previous family so I am about 25 years younger than my half-brothers and sisters. About then, and I had seen it coming, Heather wrote to me that her dad is Don Smith. Puzzle solved, Don is my half-brother John's son.

Don and I, and his brothers and sisters, acted like we were cousins around one another, heck he is a couple years older than me so it was weird for those kids to call me uncle. But that is, in fact, what he is -- my nephew. So Heather is my great niece I guess. The last time I saw her she was a little kid and I was one of the old adults. She is about the same age as my daughter. I had been scratching my head, when all this started, trying to remember if Heather was Don's daughter or one of the other Smith kids.

At this point, let me share some family photos. Heather may have never seen these before. Below is me, with my mom and dad. My dad is her great grandpa Lee. This would have been mid-1950's. My dad, at that time, was just about as old as I am now. He was mid to late 50's.

The photo below, probably 20 years old or more, is Heather's immediate family. That is her dad, Don, in the upper left. Next to him is her uncle Ron, Raymond next to him. Then you have her aunt Arlene at the lower left, her grandma Phyllis, her grandpa (my half-brother John) and her aunt Evelyn.

Unfortunately, my half-brother and her grandpa, John, is deceased. So where did all these connections come from? My dad of course. He was quite remarkable. In this photo he was about 90 years old. Next to him is my half-sister Sarah, who took dad back to Manville, Alberta. Why? To see his old car. Back in the earliest days of the Model A, my dad and his first wife drove with two kids from Broken Bow, Nebraska to Manville Alberta to start a farm. That is the Model A. Can you imagine four people, in that car which kept breaking down, going all those miles? Dad passed away at age 105.

And, to bring the story full circle and back to Heather, the next photo is my great niece Heather, and her kids. She is a realtor in Moses Lake so please say hello to her. She is family so treat her well.

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Ain't Active Rain fun!

Thanks for stopping by,

Steven L. Smith