I wrote this week's Spouse Calls column while visiting my hometown in Oklahoma. I was shamlessly sipping cappucino, writing about the "Small World" of military life, while my daughter slaved away at driver's education class. When her class was over, I picked her up and took her to get a burger at the local Braum's.

As we walked in, Jessie did a classic double take and said "That looks like ... but it can't be."

"Can't be who?" I asked.

"Miss Cathy."

I looked and immediately saw the woman, who was either Jessie's dance teacher in Ramstein, Germany, or a dead ringer, down to wardrobe and hairstyle.

I had to know for sure, and as soon as our eyes met, we knew it was indeed Miss Cathy.

"What are you doing here?" we asked, all but simultaneously.

We found out that Cathy, who has her own dance studio in Germany, and I graduated from the same high school. Both of us have military parents who retired in the same town. She was there for the same reason we were, visiting family.

Somehow in three years of dance lessons and recitals, the subject of where we call home just never came up. We discovered our connection serendipitously, because we decided to go get a burger in the same place at the same time. Small, small world.

Also on our visit in Oklahoma, we were talking about some of our oldest son's track teammates (from Germany) who had just been stationed at the base in my hometown. My stepdad, who was reading the paper, overheard us and said "What's their last name?"

We told him, and he said, "Well, I think there's a story in the paper about them."

Sure enough, there was a news photo about a community welcome ceremony.

We were able to find the family's house on base and stop by to see them. The high-schoolers will attend my alma mater, and one of my favorite teachers will be their swim coach. We also discovered that their fourth grade sister will be a student of my sister, who teaches at the elementary school on base.

That weekend, we were in Oklahoma City doing some school shopping, I called my friend Sheila, whose family just transferred to another Oklahoma base.

She said "We're on I-44, we'll be at the mall in 15 minutes." They've been back and forth between their new home, getting their son enrolled in college in another town and family in yet another town, but when we called, Sheila and her son happened to be nearby. We enjoyed a few minutes of catching up between the things we both had to get done that day.The boys swapped soon-to-be-college-freshman experiences.

For me, it took the edge off the sad goodbyes Sheila and I -- and our families -- said in Germany just a few weeks before. When we said goodbye that day, we knew it was only "See you later."

Friends really do make the world a better, and a smaller place.