Back in March, I'd posted about other Thom Watsons I'd heard or learned about. On Monday I followed a link from one of the progressive political blogs I read to a blog I'd never before seen, by a Tom Watson (without the h) in New York. From his biographic information I discovered that he and I share a number of commonalities: both Ivy-educated (he at Columbia), both current or former dot-commers (he's CIO for a philanthropic-based dotcom in New York), both with communications backgrounds evntually leading to IT careers, both bloggers, both tending left politically, etc.
He's been blogging for a while, but I only just came across his site on Monday. Imagine my surprise, then, when today I received an email from him, apparently from his discovery of my 1962 blog to say hello, noting that he was another Tom Watson born in 1962, and pointing out the same common interests and backgrounds.
Sometimes it really is a Twilight Zone world. It's one thing to recognize that given the world's population, there are a lot of people that will have similar experiences, interests and backgrounds, and similarly that--especially in my case, given that neither "Thomas" nor "Watson" are uncommon--other people share your name, but it's still a little eerie to discover that there's at least one other person with the same name, born the same year, with roughly similar professional backgrounds, life experiences and philosophy.
He even has a Van Dyke. However, we're not completely interchangeable: I don't have the wife and three kids nor, as far as I know, does he have a boyfriend, so vive les differences
It's said by some that everyone has a twin out there somewhere in the universe. This may be as close as it gets.
Thom - great post, thanks!
You might also be interested in Tom Watson, MP for East Bromwich North in the U.K.
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/
We really ought to form a club.