“How do you spell ‘Darren’,” one Darren asks the other.
“D-A-R-R-E-N.”
“YES!!” they proclaim, as they both slap a strong high-five.
Darren Hoppert (left), who hosted me in Laurel, Maryland, came out to walk the final five miles with me to his Laurel home Tuesday night.
The other Darren– Darren B (right)– saw the signs and stopped us to hear the fuller story. Having quickly learned that one another was Darren, I learned that most Darrens don’t meet many other Darrens, and when they learned that they each spelled “Darren” in the easiest and simplest way, they gave each other this unique, “I-feel-you” high-five as they carried on that: “there’s no need for the letter ‘Y’ in Darren; no need to split ‘Darren’ into two words (e.g. Dare-Rynn),” etc. I don’t know that I’ll ever again be privileged to such a closely concurring conversation between freshly met Darrens, lol.
I went on to enjoy hours of conversation with Darren Hoppert– hearing of many motorcycle travels he’s done around the world, and hearing of many more places he’ll be journeying to across the years that come.
As he walked the first couple miles with me out of Laurel yesterday, at the farewell-for-now moment, he said, “I feel like I should say something…or something…” (unsure of what).
Me: “Just the fact that you’ve walked with me speaks so much greater than words, Darren– I love it when people walk with me!”
Ahh, GREAT people– and many more to come!!