What are the chances? There are about a third of a billion people in the U.S., and two of us see the same person — a stranger — twice, though we’re hundreds of miles away?

That’s too much of a coincidence, but stay with me and help me unravel this sighting matter.

A while back, on the first Rail Runner trip for most of us, my family and I drove to Santa Fe’s South Capital Station to board the train for Albuquerque. There, I saw a man I swore had donned a half cantaloupe as a way of keeping cool.

The tam, sans brim, simply sat roundly on the elderly man’s head. It had the texture and color of a melon; it’s as if he cut a large melon in two, scooped out the guts and placed the remains of the half sphere atop his head. Naturally, I didn’t hesitate to photograph him; I figured that anyone who chooses to dress like that couldn’t claim invasion of privacy. So I clicked away.

In the preview feature of my camera, I showed members of my family what I’d seen and shot, and they all agreed it indeed looked like the man was sporting the juicy fruit on his head. Had his mother taught him to cover his head as a way of avoiding contracting the dreaded skin disease, melanoma?

I e-mailed the image to other members of my family, and the following day, I received a photo from my son Stan, from Denmark. He and his family had spent a couple of weeks in New Mexico and had left for home only the day before. While waiting for overseas connections, my son noticed a man wearing a cantaloupe hat as they waited for a flight in the Atlanta airport. It might have been the same flight, to Copenhagen, that Stan took.

As soon as he received the photo I took, Stan placed the images side by side, scratched his head and sent me the picture he had taken. Without being melodramatic, I swore the melon wearers — the one in Santa Fe and the one in Atlanta — had to have been one and the same. Both appear to be tall, in good shape, gray and balding and have fair skin. What are the chances? The resemblance is dismaying, the only difference — and it could be a big difference — was in the wristwatch: in my photo, the band is leather; in Stan’s photo, it is metal.

The hat is the first of its kind I’ve ever seen. Up close, I realized that our Santa Fe traveler was indeed wearing some kind of fabric, lest every fly and gnat in the area would arrive for the buffet. It’s possible the hat is among the latest styles, and I’ve been too far out of touch to see one.

Maybe it’s not the same man. Could be his brother. Or maybe those photographed are among millions of elderly, graying, balding, stylish hombres who like to try something new. But still, but still … how do we explain the other coincidence: the fact that both father and son thought of taking pictures of someone wearing the melon fedora? Stan and I were hundreds of miles apart when he took the pictures.

When I explained this coincidence to fellow Optic columnist Lupita Gonzales, she said simply, “That proves the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I’m sure she intended the analogy to mean that my son and I have quite similar photographic tastes (or hangups).

But the fruity part: that’s more complicated, a real melange of ideas. I think we already established that the hats are made of some kind of fabric, not a fruit, certainly not cantaloupe. So in her melancholy way, Lupita needs to search for a more apt metaphor.

Meanwhile, under the “M” section of her dictionary, she came up with “Melanochroi,” defined as a “caucasian having fair skin and dark hair.” Ya think?

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