Second thoughts on doppelgangers

After reading this About.com story about doppelgangers it reminded me of a couple uncanny incidents of my own.

One early April morn, about ten years ago, while delivering newspapers in Gimlet, I saw a mountain Lion wisp right by the Bigwood Bridge. I started thinking about the small children, who would soon be waiting at the bus stops and how they could be easy prey, for the fat cat. So I rang the Sheriff’s dept. The dispatcher replied with, “Oh, we get calls about Mountain Lions all the time." So I asked, “Then what about the kids, who will soon be playing at the bus stops? This seemed to momentarily halt the dispatcher in her tracks, but it didn’t sound as though they were going to send out an officer to investigate this threat.

This made my blood boil, because I sensed that the danger was real. While wrapping up papers in the area, I thought of an acquaintance that lived in one of Gimlet's few ramshackle houses –she was a lot like me. Her kids would soon be playing outside, while waiting for the school bus. For several minutes, I thought it important enough that I should go up and tap her door, as a precaution, even though it was only 5 am. Although I didn’t knock on her door, I focused deep within, questioning if I had made the right decision and hoped hard that her precious kids would arrive at school unharmed.

Two days later, I crossed my friend’s path, while I was lurking around at the furniture shop. She approached me asking, “somebody tapped on my door the other morning to warn me about a Mt. Lion. Was it you?” The manifestation of my startled face, must have made her think I was lying, when I claimed, ‘it was not I.’ I didn’t mention how badly I did wanted to tap her door that morning, but as far as I knew, the potential lifesaver, wasn’t me. Although now I wished I had the horse sense to awaken my friend, the sleeping beauty.

I’ve reflected about this incident now and again. In all the years of delivering early morning papers in the rich Gimlet area, it was seldom that I saw anybody jogging about. Unless they were working out in such a stealthy manner that I did not notice them. The question remains, ten years after, who or what tapped on her door that early April morn ?

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The extract from “Jay’s”About.com post is a good example of a Doppelgaenger mystery elusively hanging on the periphery:

“Then after a while I was talking with my friends and I said, "Remember how you kept saying you had seen me in Ellsworth but I wasn't there, several times over the past year or so?" And my friend said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "You know, you kept saying you saw a guy who looked just like me in Ellsworth, in stores and stuff, and he always looked exactly like me down to the last detail." She said, "No, I don't remember seeing anyone who looked like you." I said, "What are you saying, don't you remember how you kept seeing me in Ellsworth and waving at me, and I always ignored you or acted like I didn't notice you at all?" And my friend said, "No, I never said that. I didn't see anyone who looked like you in Ellsworth."”

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Shortly after I moved to Idaho, there were several cases of me being mistaken for somebody else, or somebody seeing who they thought was I elsewhere in the valley. Sometimes I was mistaken for a utility worker, a ski patrolman, or another delivery person. After this happened several times, I thought it a bit uncanny, but figured that there are probably numerous tall athletically looking white males bundled up in heavy clothing, who look much the same in Rocky Mountain ski communities.

Nonetheless, the mistaken identities continued at a rate high enough, that it began to tweak my curiosity. Never had I actually met one of these supposed people that looked like me, although once somebody pointed “him” out at a medium distance as we were driving by a lumber store. In my brief glimpse, I could see he was wearing construction overalls and yes he had a remarkably similar build to mine, but of course we were in too much of a hurry to investigate this double in depth at that time.

Finally, several years ago, after this happened a few more times, I vowed that whenever someone brought up my similar resemblance to someone else, that I would instantly jot down all the particulars and somehow instantly get to the bottom of this, talk to whoever this person is, and compare our backgrounds and tendencies, etc. Three more times this was brought up, and although I jotted down the known details, it was never enough information to go on.

Then one day, I was sitting in Hailey’s old hospital emergency room, to get some X-rays for a minor injury. A middle-aged woman waiting in the reception area, recognized me with such a warm aplomb, that I thought I should know her from around town. Not instantly recognizing her, I didn’t want to be rude, but figured that once we started conversing, I would be able to place from where I knew her. During the course of our long wait, she mentioned several people whose names sounded familiar and a couple of incidents around the valley that I might have known about. It was probably five minutes into our conversation that I realized that she must have been mistaking me for someone else. At this point she asked, “Remember that boat trip we all went on, down to C.J Strike Reservoir? You and Ted and Mary and me, and you said all those funny things?” Well, it sure sounded like me, but I had to deny remembering anything about this. She took a very close up inspection of me while saying, “You don’t remember that?” I simply repeated, “No, I cannot remember that.” Then, I will never forget the piercing look she gave me -as just then I was being called into the emergency examination room, which is well known for being a portal to the unknown. Her look held the thought that I was most certainly the same person who traveled with her family on their boat and I must have been either drunk or insane not to remember…