six degrees

[pretty faythe]

Everyone has heard the theory of Six Degrees Of Speration, right. Basically in a nut shell if a person is one "step" away from each person he knows and two "steps" away from each person who is known by one of the people he or she knows, then everyone is no more than six "steps" away from each person on Earth.

So, what is your wackiest, craziest way you have been connected to someone?

Here is my story.

A long long time ago my oldest sister lost custody of her oldest three children. Currently there ages are 22, 17, and 16. So I think it was 15 years ago that they were removed from her care and a few years after that that she legally lost rights. Anyway. Fast forward, the youger two girls were adopted we werent allowed contact with them. The oldest son was never adopted by his foster family and we had contact with him periodicaly through out. Fast forward. Our sister moves out Ohio, phew, thank goodness.
Fast forward. A few days ago my nephew posts on his myspace that his little sister is graduating high school. I dont think anything of it. My sister that lives here calls me last night to tell me that the oldest of the daughters calls our big sister and she sent her a recent pic and she sent it to me. I was looking at it when my 14yo comes into the room and she says it looks like her friend. SO we had our older sister ask her all these questions and it turns out that they have known each other for a year lol We have been living within a 3 mile radius of each other for about 5 years now! And she has known friends of hers for 3 years!

 

[Jack Scorpion]

Amazing. Absolutely fascinating. Although, a terrible way to start a thread; who is going to top that?

Here is mine, anyhow: Visiting the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Afterwards, visiting a distant relative I'd never met who in turn showed me his paintings and pictures of his outdoor Hermitage gallery showing (held on top of closing/opening bridges over the canals at night), and then taking a cab ride home that night along the canals (at just the right time) and getting to watch the lit up bridges closing/opening.

Not so much a series of degrees as just a chain of related events.

 

[Shearer]

Not a crazy, wacky story... but I'm two degrees away from Katharine Hepburn. My sister's 90 year-old next door neighbor is Ms. Hepburn's cousin on her father's side. I talk to her often... she's one one of the smartest, funniest women I know.

She recently told me about her first camping trip to Yosemite - at 80 years old. She unzipped her tent in the middle of the night and came face-to-face with a bear

She's definitely got that certain something that Katharine Hepburn had.

 

[Barry]

I'm not sure if this counts...

I have become good friends with another Fedora Lounger. He's a bit older than I am. We didn't know one another before we met on the Lounge. Anyway, we started talking on the phone and I learned that at one point his family and my family lived in the same very large county. We didn't think much of it at that point but we talked about some neighborhood places and what not. I think the real reason we didn't talk about it further is that he moved away a few years after my family moved to the county. We started talking about it again months later.

As it turns out his child and I attended the same elementary school during the same time period and we were only one grade level apart.

Small world.

 

[Miss Brill]

No unique story to tell, but I have a friend who is a friend of Robert De Niro's.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Thanks to people I interviewed over the course of writing my book I'm two degrees from Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan, three degrees from Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman, and four degrees from JFK. I don't know how they managed to miss out on Johnson and Carter....

 

[Lincsong]

Clint Eastwood, Arnold Swarzennegger

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I am four degrees from John Lennon, but I can't tell you in what way....

karol

 

[MissHuff]

I live in the smallest state in the union and I can play the degrees game with anybody i meet on the street and it will often only take 2 to know someone and about 3 or 4 till we are somehow related. It is sometimes weird and awkward but I would truly miss it if I moved.

I guess I have one mildly interesting one. 2 degrees from James Gandolfini. While crossing the street in NYC my friend almost got hit by a car driven by him. almost "whacked" if you will by Tony Soprano.

 

[Tourbillion]

This is so true...

My grandfather lived in General Pershing's neighborhood as a kid (my mom said he used to bounce my grandfather on his knee), so I'm probably 3 degrees away for everyone from Sir Winston Churchill to Pancho Villa. Maybe four for Axis leaders like Hitler or Mussolini.

My dad worked in the White House for a while when I was a kid , and I know he met/worked with several of the recent presidents and other important folks, so I'm only two degree's from just about everyone and their brother (3rd degree for the brother I guess)

Plus I live in Los Angeles, so I hear stories like--"I was in a bar and it was so crowded that I actually touched Mick Jagger as he squished by".

Yeah, it's a small world.

[huh]

 

[Salv]

I'm two degrees from Lance Armstrong - I used to be in the same amateur cycle club as Brit cyclist Roger Hammond who rode in Armstrong's Discovery Channel team in 2005. That also makes me three degrees from Sheryl Crow.

 

[db5zx]

Communist ties...

Well, through producing a documentary on the fall of the Berlin Wall and having interviewed Guenter Schabowski (the actual guy who announced the opening of the wall on 11/9/89), I am two degrees away from most of the former East German leadership and probably three or four degrees away from almost every Soviet leader since Khrushchev.

Jens

 

[Senator Jack]

At the age of 16 I was, to my protest, whisked from Brooklyn and, for six years, imprisoned in a small Connecticut town. My father had retired from the FDNY and went to work as a social director at a resort. At the last QM, I met the FL's Floatin' Joe and it turned out he lived in the same small town. He knew my father and I went to school with his cousin.

One of the theories about the six degrees is that it is easier to be linked to famous people than to the rest of us slobs. By one or two links, I 'm sure all of us are connected to the President, but how many can claim a connection to Roger Kaputnik of Camden, New Jersey?

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[dhermann1]

John L. Sullivan

My friend's dad always used to say "Shake the hand that shook the hand of John L. Sullivan". Well I shook his hand on more than one occasion, so I can say "Shake the hand that shook the hand that shook the hand of John L. Sullivan." And I can tell you, he had a hell of a grip.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

the rest of the phrase

I met Kevin Bacon's brother Michael.

 

[Senator Jack]

Just remembered my other FL connections.

Learned that one of my clients here in NY writes a column for MK's Makeup Artist magazine.

Twenty-something years ago, Feraud used to roadie for a hardcore band that was managed by one of my friends from high school.

 

[Lincsong]

My Mom and one of my Dad's sisters in law were in the same grade school. Mom was married to Dad for over 35 years and my Aunt was married to my Uncle for over 30 years until they realized that 44 years earlier that they were in the same third and fourth grade class and had later married brothers.

In college I volunteered on the Senate Campaign for Congresswoman Pat Saiki in Hawaii. A couple times a week I'd show up with a group of people and wave signs and hand out pamphletts. One day this old lady came up and asked me if I my family was from Honokaa. I told her yes, and she said; "you look just like them" It turned out that she was a teenage volunteer at the hospital that my infant aunt was kept after my Grandmother had died 50 years earlier. She remembered all my Uncles and Aunts although they left 46 years earlier.and of course knew many of their cousins.

 

[Fletch]

What's your "number"?

Your "number" is the degree of separation from a notable person, preceded by that person's last name. Mathematicians speak fondly of their Erdös number, which is how close they are to the legendary Hungarian: 1 for collaborators, 2 for collaborators with those collaborators, etc.

For our purposes, I suppose it counts merely to have had contact with someone. For example, my Martha Tilton number is 1; my Benny Goodman number is 2; and my Bela Bartok number is 3.

 

[Haversack]

Charles Lindberg - 3.
William Randolph Hearst - 2.
John Steinbeck - 2.

Haversack.

 

[Lesvinyl]

My father met Marlon Brando at a concert in L.A. I wish I could have been that lucky to meet Mr. Brando.