One of our destinations in Milwaukee was the Lakefront Brewery. Five dollars gets you a tour and tokens redeemable for 32 ounces of beer. Bartenders casual about taking tokens gets you 32 ounces more.

The tour is about 10 minutes long. About one minute is devoted to learning about hops, wort and the biological miracle that is beermaking. The other nine minutes consist of the tour guide cracking wise about bungholes, making fun of the frat boys just there for the cheap beer (especially those who had already been on the Miller tour that morning), and dancing to the theme song from "Laverne & Shirley."

Her shtick was pretty funny, and the guy standing next to me was in stitches. He had a very distinctive laugh, a resonant, appreciative laugh. His laugh, in fact, sounded a lot like that of Dan, a guy I knew in college. He even bore a passing resemblance. But it couldn't be Dan. Dan was in Ohio.

As we moved on to the next round of taps, I said to Sandy, "Does that guy resemble Dan, or what?"

"Hey, that is Dan!"

And so it was. Of all the breweries, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into ours!