Small World 4

I have written before on the ‘small world’ phenomena (related to ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ also known as ‘Bacon’s Law’), in fact a couple of times, including some unqualified statistical analysis.  This seems to happen to us on a regular basis, and others have told me similar stories. But it’s been almost a year since my last ‘small world’ post, and after this past week, I figured it was time to share another…

So about a year ago, we got new neighbors across the alley.  That house has had a string of awesome neighbors, and Matt and Amy proved to be no exception.  If those names sound familiar, they are the same Matt and Amy of The Great Cocktail Caper fame.

When they moved in, Matt turned out to be an outdoor activities guy, who happened to own some Gossamer gear.  He couldn’t believe he had just moved across the alley from the founder, and he said “Wait until I tell my friends about this!”  Matt ended up going on this year’s Buckskin trip for The List.  On the trip, he took a picture of us to share with his friends.  It was a hard year for Buckskin, but Matt was a great addition to a fantastic group, that is already planning another trip together this summer.

Matt and I drove back to Bend, and a few days later, Francie gets a text from her friend Devon.  Francie met Devon and her [now] husband Greg when they were all in the dorms at Cal Poly SLO.  So they’ve been friends a LONG time, and we’ve hung out with them when we’re in Newport Beach.  The text from Devon read:

“Hey France!  So here I am at my niece’s Ole Miss graduation, and my nephew and I were talking about great books to read.  He said, “Have you read about the guy who started Gossamer Gear?”  Well that led to a fun conversation!

The text continued to explain that the nephew, Pete, said “Matt and Amy just moved behind them.” and he showed Devon a picture of Matt and I hiking in Buckskin.  It turns out, when Matt and Amy lived in Newport Beach, Pete and his wife Laurie were in their tight group of best friends.  Through them, Matt and Amy met Devon and Greg.  Now that we all know of the connection, it’s going to awesome when everyone comes up to visit Matt and Amy in Bend for Thanksgiving!

If Devon and her nephew Pete hadn’t been sitting waiting for the graduation to start and talking about good books to read, we might never have figured out the connection, at least not for a few more years.  I want to get better when I meet someone of finding out about them, because I have to believe that for every small world story that we discover, there are several more that are undiscovered.

Hope your summer includes an awesome ‘small world’ story of your own!