Four months since graduation, I still think about OU. I wonder what Halloween was like. I wonder how DP Dough tastes. I miss drinking Black Widows.
But not very often.
Right now I'm living in Dublin, Ireland, working for a monogramming business. Not exactly what I expected to do with my journalism degree, but I'm happy. Heck, I live literally two minutes walking distance from Bono. And I saw his dog. Life is great.
Last weekend my friends and I went to Amsterdam for the weekend, which to me is just like Athens but maybe 28 times bigger.
So Sunday night we did a pub-crawl, and by 3:30 a.m. we were starving and on our way home. I couldn't see a Goodfellas anywhere, but we did manage to find a tiny pizza shop down a side street in the city center, just about to close for the night.
Inside was one other group of guys, and when they heard us talking, they asked if we were Americans.
Yeah
we're from California said my friends.
All of you? asked one guy in a gray hooded sweatshirt, holding three pieces of pizza.
No I'm actually from Ohio
I replied.
Me too! he said. I grew up in Cincinnati!
Well, that's weird, I thought. I'm also from Cincinnati.
And then it dawned on me.
Oh my GOD! I know this person! He went to OU! He played basketball for OU!
BUBBA FREAKING WALTHER!
I nearly peed my pants. This was not happening. Not at 3:30 a.m. Not on a Sunday night. Not at a tiny pizza shop in Amsterdam!
But it was!
Walther, the kid from Moeller High School, who transferred to Akron, who transferred to Ohio University, who shot the three like it was his job. Well, now it is his job. He plays professionally for a team called ZZ Leiden in the Dutch Premier League.
And I just randomly ran into him.
Wow. It's a small world. I can now say that with conclusive evidence.
Four months since graduation, I still think about OU. Even in Amsterdam.
Sara Normand is a 2008 alumna of Ohio University and former sports reporter for The Post.
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