It is a small world....and I am getting old

So today we had a group from the "Cotton Institute" come in for a crash course on cotton ginning. This group of 30 or so folks represented about 10-14 different countries with a handful of Americans thrown in for good measure. Now being new to the world of ginning, I hung out in the back of the classroom. We went to see the micro-gin run, a first for me, and then the group milled around looking at samples, machinery, and interacting with the experts (including me). This is when the world shrunk and I aged. This guy asks me "Did you have a relative attend Tulane?" I said no, but I did some time around there. Suddenly he smiles and says "You were with the Marines my freshman year". That's right folks, a gentleman I taught sailing too for the Tulane NROTC program, now learned ginning from a course I was involved in. The irony here is that I was a lousy sailing instructor (I know what I am doing on the water, just not the technical names for sail parts). Apparently he got out the Navy earlier this year and is working for his family business in Charleston, SC, exporting cotton.
Tulane NROTC

In other things, is anyone else who lived in NO tired of being an item of curiousity? I have been asked the most obtuse questions about Katrina. My personal favorite is why am I rebuilding?