Rabbit Trails into my Life

Sometimes one just gets bored.

Sitting at my computer with no ambition to speak of, I looked something up on Wikipedia. Being satisfied with the answers found there, I decided to follow a rabbit trail.

That rabbit trail is a version of a game "Six Degrees of Separation" in which actor Kevin Bacon is linked to anyone in the entertainment industry. To me, the diversion is to click on "Random Article" on Wikipedia. That brought me to Koyasan Reihōkan, a very unlikely place to begin. Scrolling down the article about ancient Chinese art, I came upon the date May 1, 1961, one of two dates in my lifetime. Not exactly a good springboard, but it was something.

I got lucky, for on that date, when I was a poor boy living in northern Florida, a book had been published based on something I was somewhat familiar with: life in the deep south. The book was To Kill a Mockingbird, which I was told was a crime in Florida where the bird was the state bird. I thought it an odd name for a book and I was only in second grade when it came out. The next year, its author Harper Lee received the Pulitzer Prize for writing it. She had grown up in Monroeville, Alabama, on the Alabama River.

The most famous town on the Alabama River was Selma, the starting point for the famous Civil Rights March to the capital of Montgomery. When I used to visit my grandmother, and step-granddad after she remarried, I was still too young to care much about all the fuss happening there. My grandmother was still working at the Selma Times-Journal at the time. Or I think it was her and not her new husband (they married in 1961, I think). [I apologize for the misremembering]]

Counting my grandparents who lived there I went successfully navigated within 6 degrees from a totally foreign subject -- literally -- to my family. It was a fun exercise and I recommend it to anyone who comes upon this blog. I'd love to hear any successful "Six degrees" anyone comes up with.