By: Dan Rosenberg
For over thirteen years I’ve enjoyed presenting factual stories with unusual connections, all true. I look forward to continuing that tradition.
If you enjoy this column, you may want to check out my debut novel, Elusive Links, a fictional connection story, taking place in 1492 and 2002. It should be published the week of November 15th by Amazon Books. Up-to-date information can be found at danarosenberg.com (note my middle initial).
Some people may find the connections in Elusive Links farfetched. However, if you’re a regular reader of this column, you might have a different perspective.
Read: Empire State, Garden State, Buckeye State
Back to the factual stories.
My business partner, John, settled into the Starbucks in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to take a short break and check his messages before making the short drive to his home in York, Maine. A couple was seated at an adjacent table. The man spoke to John in a southern accent, “Are you from around here?”
John responded that he used to live around the corner. Turns out the couple was visiting and wanted some local information on things to do. John called attention to the southern accent and asked, “Where you from?”
“We’re from Arkansas. I’m Mark Pryor. I spent a couple of terms in the US Senate.”
“I know who you are. I’m a politics junkie.”
They continued to talk. Eventually, Senator Pryor asked John what he did for a living. John explained that he had spent most of his career in agriculture including running a large cotton company, which took him to Arkansas frequently.
John continued, “In fact, I have a crazy Arkansas story to tell you. When I had some business problems there, I was introduced to a sheriff there, by the name of Bobby…”
Pryor interrupted and completed John’s sentence with Bobby’s last name, “…May. I know him well.”
Read: 1 in 268 Million
On separate occasions, they were invited to Bobby May’s residence. While seated at the dining room table, May told them about his work for Bill Clinton in organizing the local area for Clinton’s first presidential run. May went on to show them the same artifacts and a sword mounted on the wall. He also detailed his clandestine negotiations, on behalf of the Clinton administration, with Muammar Qaddafi, for the perpetrators of the Pan Am flight 103 bombing that took the lives of 270 people over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988.
It was incredible that Arkansan Mark and Mainer John found an intersection in their lives through a chance meeting in a Portsmouth coffee shop. Perhaps even more bizarre was the identical experience they had with Bobby May and a little-known part of a dark period in our country’s history.