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Odd coincidences happen

By Jim Kriek For The 4 min read

How many times have you had something happen, after which you muse for a moment and then ask, “now, isn’t that a coincidence?” Odd coincidences happen every day, and for the most part they can be interesting, although not always coming to light for publication.

Yet, there are exceptions, like the one that came back in memory this week.

To set the stage, every once in a while my wife gets after me to clean up what I call my office at home, my files, morgue, whatever. Joan facetiously refers to the room as “a live-in landfill.”

By any name, there is an assortment of clippings, copies of past stories and columns of which I have written a ton during a half-century plus in this business.

It was while rummaging through one of the files that a past column was found, one that is really Out of the Past, one that I had completely forgotten about until this reminiscent discovery came about.

Let’s go back to July, of 1962. I was then sports editor in Connellsville, and had previously contacted the committee at Oakmont Country Club to cover a national golf tournament to be played there.

On opening day, I went to the registration desk, identified myself, and the young lady behind the desk said, “Your credentials were picked up this morning.”

Assured that such could not possibly have taken place, that I had just that moment arrived at her desk, the lady smiled and said, “Oh, I well remember a Mr. Kriek getting them, but I’ll check my list again.”

Her recheck showed the coincidence.

The credentials had been issued – to a man named Kriek – but in this case, it was Howard Kriek, representing the Wilson Sports News Service, of Illinois. But right beneath the name of ‘Howard’ Kriek was the name of “James” Kriek.

She solved the problem right away, adding as we both chuckled about the coincidence, “since I gave that Mr. Kriek your credentials, and he has been gone for a while, I’ll just give you his.”

So, James Kriek of Connellsville, became Howard Kriek of Illinois, and covered the rest of the matches with no problems.

Despite efforts to do so, I never did locate that other guy.

I wanted to meet him and find out if perhaps he might be a distant cousin, and at the same time sympathize with him for having to go through life saddled with the same name that some might call nefarious, and which others have tagged with adjectives that can’t be repeated in a family newspaper.

But, I doubt very much that we could possibly be related.

When my Father came to this country from Poland, and started to school, the Sisters somehow misspelled his name (from Kryk) to what I now bear, and he never bothered to change it back, Much to the relief of some of his other kinfolks, for Dad was somewhat of a Black Sheep in their eyes.

Some years back, I read about a Dutch family named Kriek that owned a large brewery business in South Africa, and for years there was Johann Kriek on the pro tennis circuit. But I never followed up to see if there was any connection.

And how about this for another coincidence!

My original Oakmont credentials were issued to Howard Kriek from Illinois. My youngest son is also named Howard, who would have been about four years old at that time. You people around here probably know him as Howie, who works for James Vending in Uniontown.

And how about another coincidental note, which was included in my post-tournament column.

The girl at the Oakmont credential desk asked,” You’re from Connellsville? My home was in Uniontown.”

She was Jayne Frick, then of Verona, whose husband, Norman Frick, worked for Bell Telephone Co., and at one time worked in Fayette County.

You just never get too far away from home. Or coincidence.

Jim Kriek is a Herald-Standard sports correspondent.

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