Kyle Pratt meets Kyle Pratt in Eek Alaska.

A week ago Loni, the Eek School secretary, said, “I just met someone with your name.”

“My first name, Kyle?”

“No your whole name, Kyle Pratt,” she replied.

She went on to say that he was there as part of the ongoing project to bring running water to the village and had already left. The idea that someone in the village would have the same first and last name was amusing. “If he returns to the village, let me know.”

A few days later, the agent for one of the bush airlines came up to me with a puzzled look. “I have a crate of weatherization materials with your name on it.” I told him about the other Kyle.

Alice, the Eek postmistress told me. “A guy came in and said he was Kyle Pratt. I said ‘No, you’re not.’ But he was.”

The next day I met the other Kyle Pratt just as I was getting breakfast ready for the students and opening the school. We didn’t have long to talk, but I found out he was from Washington state. “The whole thing just got weirder,” I thought.

I didn’t see him for several days and then on Friday it was time for me to leave Eek and this time for good, (More on that later.), I saw him walking from the school as I rode in a trailer behind the school ATV. I was on my way to the village airfield and thought that was the last time I would see him.

Our plane landed on the dirt runway as we grabbed our bags from the trailer. Suddenly Kyle, on another ATV, rounded one of the buildings at the airfield. He came up to me and said, “I just have to ask you a question. The woman at the clinic said we have the same birthday.”

I told him mine.

He shook his head. “That is unreal.” He told me his birthday.

We not only share the same first name and last name,

And we are both from Washington state,

And, that day we were both in the same remote Alaskan village.

We also have the same birth month and day. (But different years.)

I am still shaking my head in puzzlement. What are the odds?