Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ronnie Hawkins were all born about the same time - Ronnie only 2 days after Elvis and Jerry only about 9 months after them - one likes to imagine him as being conceived on 9 January, the day between the births of Elvis and Ronnie - and about the same place - all were born in the Deep South of the United States. They all became musicians and were all invited into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. It is amusing to consider that the major difference between them is that Elvis met his Colonel Parker, whereas Ronnie and Jerry Lee did not. (Actually even if Ronnie or Jerry had met the Colonel, he would never have become their manager, since they were essentially unmanageable.) Is it the Parker factor which has determined that Elvis is now a very famous dead icon and that Ronnie and Jerry Lee are less famous but very much alive? Of the three, Elvis is the only one who is universally recognisable.

      Ronnie continued to differentiate himself from Jerry Lee by another meeting - with Canada. A spontaneous trip to Toronto in 1958 in a car borrowed by his sister evolved into a life-long love affair with that city. Thus , whereas Jerry Lee remained in the American South and in his rockabilly music, Ronnie moved to another country, another culture, and a whole other range of music.

      Other members of my group of cohorts have had significant meetings. Christo Javachekk met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon in Paris. Their environmental installations are attributed to Christo and Jeanne-Claude (both of them having abandoned their surnames). They also share a birthday - 13 June 1935. He was born in Gabrovo, Bulgaria and she in Casablanca, Morocco. They met in Paris in October 1958 and married in November 1962. They have worked together ever since. Had Christo not been commissioned to paint a portrait of Precilda, the mother of Jeanne-Claude, which led to their meeting, they would have led entirely different lives.

      Christopher Pratt and Mary Pratt, another couple within my cohorts, are both artists. They do not seem to have the intense collaboration like that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. However, they no doubt influence one another's work in subtler ways. They met and married in New Brunswick in 1957. She encouraged him to study at the Glasgow School of Art and at Mount Allison University. They continue to work, side by side, on their very different artistic styles. Once again, a meeting has a very profound impact on both of their lives.

      Another fateful meeting involving another member of my karass was clearly intentional from the point of view of the meetee. Henry Grimes was a very successful musician who suddenly disappeared in the 1960s. He was assumed to be dead and listed as such in many jazz reference works. Reports of his death turned out to be grossly exaggerated. Marshall Marrotte, a social worker and jazz fan, set out to discover what had happened to Henry Grimes. Following a lead that Grimes had gone to California, Marrotte, to his surprise, found Grimes alive, but nearly destitute, renting a small apartment in Los Angeles. Having suffered from bipolar disorder and sold his bass, Grimes had fallen out of touch with the jazz world. When word spread of Grimes's "resurrection", other jazz musicians rallied around to arrange performances, assist with travel and living expenses, and one musician, William Parker (in no sense related to Colonel Tom Parker) donated a bass. Grimes's return was featured in the New York Times and on National Public Radio. A documentary film and a biography are planned.

      What role does such meetings and moves play in determining the lives people lead? Are those meetings and moves really chance? The meeting between Elvis Presley and Tom Parker was presented as chance. However, there is some suggestion that Colonel Parker was "stalking" Elvis and hanging around so as to accidentally bump into him. It was a chance meeting for Presley but not for Parker. Perhaps it was not even a chance meeting for Elvis. Could it be that unconscious motivation guides what appears like chance. After all, Elvis met thousands of people by chance, and few of those meetings had any major impact on his life. Many people fritter their lives away dealing with mundane maintenance matters. One strategy for reducing the time spent on MMM is to subcontract it out to a manager. The interest and talent of some people is in managing.^₁ A fine synergy can often be established between a creative person and a competent manager. The Christo & Jeanne-Claude team is one such example. Is it possible that Elvis unconsciously recognised that the Presley-Parker team would also be productive?