2023, books, Gatherings, Media, Mysteries, Stories

Six Degrees of Separation

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Today’s post comes to us from Cynthia!

“Six Degrees of Separation” is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.

 I recently listened to Garrison Keiller’s “Writer’s Almanac” after many years of just reading at the printed version.  Maybe I haven’t listened since it went off the air. While listening I remember 1975 when I first discovered and loved Garrison’s radio show. We went to several of his live versions before and after it went national. But before it went national, I was visiting with a school friend and our English teacher in Cloquet. In the middle of the conversation my friend mentioned Garrison. She knew him! She had been the editor of the University of Minnesota’s monthly literary magazine, Ivory Tower in 1963 and 1964, and Garrison was her assistant editor. I was so happily astounded that I knew someone who knew him…Six Degrees of Separation!  When I finally met Garrison while working at MPR in Duluth, I asked him if he remembered her. Of course, he did. They reconnected again not too long ago. And she and I are still close friends.

 Another “Six Degree” tale to tell:

One of my favorite MPR classical music hosts was Australian Stephanie Wendt. I met her in person when she was the host of an event in Duluth and I was her “assistant.” She is also a classical pianist. She married a choral director and they moved to Sweden. We were Facebook friends and then I joined her blog where she posted beautiful photographs of where she lives. I recently asked a friend, Gunilla, who lives on the farm in Mahtowa she inherited from her uncle. She also lives and is a pastor in Sweden: “Is the town where my online friend, Stephanie, lives close to where you live?” Gunilla said, “Yes! I know Stephanie! She and her husband were just at and often are at my church!”

Do you have any “Six Degree of Separation” tales to tell?

56 thoughts on “Six Degrees of Separation”

  1. This isn’t necessarily 6 degrees of separation, but just last night my 12 years old great nephew and I were exploring Family Search together. I had earlier followed the path to a “multiple greats” grandfather to first century C.E. This time we took a different route and soon discovered Alfred The Great is a “multiple greats” grandfather. Continuing the search took us to…Joseph of Nazareth! Of course, we had to click the “children” tab and sure enough there was Jesus. The continued lineage followed exactly the genealogy listed in the Bible book of Luke which took us to Adam and Eve. Pretty cool!

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    1. I haven’t had this experience on Family Search, but I gather there are people associated with “Answers in Genesis” who believe the world is no older than 6,000 years, and have installed the family trees on Family Search to prove it.

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  2. Husband had a graduate student friend when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. The friend had attended Harvard, and recalled riding the elevator in his Harvard dorm with Yo Yo Ma, who was a resident in the dorm as well.

    I was on a plane once with Donny Osmond.

    Husband and I had a professor named Frederick Marcuse in graduate school who was the cousin of Herbert Marcuse, the philosopher.

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  3. In the property abstract of the farm, Benjamin Franklin was one of the owners. Not *that* BF, but A Benjamin Franklin none the less. 🙂

    Listening to Mindy Ratner on MPR yesterday, I remember meeting her once upon a time when the local stations did their own fundraising and she had come down to Rochester. Evidently, Mindy has been around MPR a while.

    It was 44 years ago today I had the farm accident that messed up my leg, and probably changed the course of my life. #noregrets

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    2. Mindy and MPR recently celebrated her 40 years on classical music. She was the first host I met when I started at WSCD in Duluth…she noticed spinach between my front teeth…so embarrassing!

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Here is a weird DNA experience at about 6 degrees. Years ago now I participated in an Ancestry DNA test. I have written about that before. About 5 years ago I received an email through the Ancestry account from a lovely young man name Benjamin in Colorado. He had a recently diagnosed renal/kidney condition. He found me on the site as a relative who might be a 3rd or 4th cousin. He wanted to know if there were any people with kidney disease on my branch of the tree.
    Answer: No one that I knew of.

    Then he went on to say he had been born in Iowa City, Iowa, the product of artificial insemination! Who ever donated his sperm was in Dad’s branch of the family tree, but he knew none of these people, of course. My thought: “Wow. I did not see that coming when I took that DNA test.”

    I could direct him to the branch of the family tree he needed to people in Eastern Iowa named Bryson and Parks. Then I wondered, am I related to author Bill Bryon? There are writers in my family, too. That could be fun. He was from Des Moines and attended High School with one of my Stratton cousins, 30 miles from where I was born. HMMMM. Could I ask Bill to take a DNA test, too? Did he donate that particular sperm? Given the highly personal content of the question I did not email Bill to ask. But really, that would be too good to be true.

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  6. I have told before about meeting Sally Rogers while waiting in a Caribou line at the airport. This is actually a celebrity sighting, not truly something where we know the same people.

    I have met someone recently and we were amazed to learn we knew someone in common, but I can’t recall the details right now. This is happening more often, I’m afraid – the short term memory… Hopefully it will surface later in the day!

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  7. I would characterize Cynthia’s stories as mutual friendships rather than degrees of separation. Since she knows both parties in both cases, there is no separation.

    I was curious as to whether the specifics of “social connection” were spelled out. Do you need to meet one-to-one with an individual for it to qualify as a connection? Or is it enough to have been on the same airplane with Donny Osmond?

    If the latter, I was present at a talk by Carl Sandburg when I was twelve. You can imagine the chain of connections one could spin from that. And my parents were friends with Hubert and Muriel Humphrey when they had a cabin on the same lake as Humphrey’s retreat. I met him once or twice and somewhere I have a pair of Vice Presidential cufflinks he gave me.

    Back when I worked in advertising, I worked on a television commercial for Northwest Airlines that involved actor Peter Lawford and I personally directed Mr. Lawford in an associated photo shoot. That puts me only one degree away from the Rat Pack and icons like Marilyn Monroe and also to the Kennedys through his wife Patricia Kennedy. At the same advertising agency I worked and traveled with a director who had worked personally with Buster Keaton when Keaton did a series of commercials for Northwest.

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    1. When I first knew both Gunilla and Stephanie, I didn’t know they were connected. When I first learned that my friend knew Garrison, I had not met him. Maybe less than “six” degrees? But I love the theory!

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      1. My friend Ann Mikkelsen, who passed away a couple of years ago, grew up in Anoka. She came from a large, close-knit Catholic family. Her oldest brother and Garrison were classmates in high school and pretty close friends. He spent a fair amount of time in their family home, but they lost contact with him after they all moved away from Anoka, and her brother was killed in an auto accident.

        Many years later, Ann wrote a memoir of her childhood, and one of her sisters sent a copy of it to Garrison. He liked it, and responded by inviting her and her sister to lunch. This was after Garrison was fired by MPR over alleged sexual misconduct. Ann had always considered him a rather odd person, but reported that the lunch with him and his third and current wife had been enjoyable.

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        1. I worked and was friends with Mary Moos, who was the sister of Kate Moos, who was Garrison’s wife or girlfriend or something.

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        2. At St. Olaf in 1977, one of my classmates was an Ivars Mikkelsons. I’m not certain of the spelling. I’m not sure about my memory either, but I think he told me he was from Latvia, so maybe not related to your friend Ann. Also, I have a distinct memory of him using plurals for both his first and last name.

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        3. Ann’s maiden name was Cutter. Mikkelsen was the last name of her second husband, Mike, and he father was a Danish immigrant Fun fact, Mike was former boyfriend of mine. The “relationship” didn’t work out, but we remained friends. Ann always got a kick out of introducing me to her friends as Mike’s former girlfriend.

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        4. Margaret Moos was the producer of his early shows. She was also his live-in girlfriend until he unceremoniously dumped her when he fell in love with, Ulla Skærved. Skærved was a former exchange student from Denmark. They became reacquainted when they both attended their high school reunion.

          The Moos connection, however, is an interesting one. Another branch on that family tree is former U of M president Malcolm Moos. Malcolm was also a former speech writer for President Eisenhower.

          Moos’ ex-wife and one of his daughters have lived many years just a few blocks from my house., and I have known them for many years. Tracy passed away just last year, but Kathy, the daughter, still lives here. Kathy was the owner of Moos Blooms, a now defunct flower shop adjacent to what used to be Jerabek’s Bakery. Here’s a link to Tracy’s obit, it will give you a sense of what an interesting family that is:
          https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/margaret-tracy-gager-moos-obituary?id=35372381

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  8. My mother had a student named Ari Brouwer in a country school in Pipestone County in the early 1940’s. He went on to become a Reformed Church pastor and eventually president of the World Council of Churches. My mother was a little surprised when she heard that and said “He was just a fat little Dutch boy!”

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  9. I have so many six degrees of separation tales that I don’t know where to start. Some of these are surprising, but others seem almost inevitable. When you hang around with people who you share a certain interest with, it doesn’t seem that unusual to discover that you know the same people though your connection may be completely different.

    Here’s an example of the former: Rosalie Sorrels stayed at our house several times when she was performing in and around the Twin Cities. She’d often stay several days and we’d spend the time chatting, attending to getting her dentures repaired, laundry done, or visiting with old friends. Rosalie knew most of the old West Bank musicians quite well, and through her I met several of them as well.

    During one of her stays, Terry Tempest Williams was doing a reading/book signing thing at The Hungry Mind bookstore. I knew Rosalie was an avid reader, so I asked her if she’d like to go, and she said she’d love to. I had no idea the two had actually met on several prior occasions.

    Following the reading, Terri spotted Rosalie in the crowd, and when she got done signing books, invited us both, plus the entire staff of the Hungry Mind bookstore, to her hotel room for refreshments. We spent a couple of enjoyable hours sipping wine and nibbling on cheese and fruit while listening to Terry and Rosalie swap stories.

    Years later I learned that Terry is a close friend to another writer whose work I admire, Alexandra Fuller.

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    1. I am also two degrees from Alexandra Fuller… one of my best girlfriends lived in Montana and met her a few times. We are both big AF fans!

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  10. More stories of meetings that became friendships, or fun opportunities. Pay no attention Bill. 🙂

    The Rochester Repertory Theater used to do a folk concert series back in the late 1980’s. I met Larry Long, Christine Lavin, Rich and Maureen Delgrosso, Country Joe, and the members of Trova, from which their promoter, Linda, stayed at our house and we became good friends.
    I also ran sound for a small ‘church’ concert by Ann Reed, but I moved a mic stand, and her SPECIAL mic fell out and she was NOT pleased. But the woman who coordinated those concerts, she and I became good friends and she owns a salon and spa and they offer THE BEST massages!

    A theater designer friend had a college roommate, who had a date with Cleavon Little, from Blazing Saddles. She says she can still remember opening the door for him, and his lovely smooth voice saying “Good Evening. I’m here for ______”.

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  11. OT – I just have to share this obituary which is hilarious and has been circulating on social media for years. It is most often reported as having been written by a bot, but that turns out not to be true. It was written by comedian Keaton Patti, who has been creating similar works for years. It’s from Patti’s 2020 book ‘I forced a bot to write this book’.

    Here’s the obit:

    ” Brenda Tent retired from living at the age of old, surrounded by family and natural causes. A librarian from birth, Brenda was an avid collector of dust. She had a sweet heart and married her high school. She loved having hobbies and helping her sons to be disadvantaged youths. She had no horses but thought she did. The church gave her a choir because she sang like bird and looked like bird and Brenda was a bird. She owed us so many poems.

    The funeral will be held in 1977 at heaven. In lieu of flowers, send Brenda more life.”

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  12. I have a fair number of celebrities at the one degree level, thanks to my work at the bookstore, but this is my favorite six degrees:

    My dad presented in front of the Supreme Court in May of 1969. He met Thurgood Marshall.

    Thurgood Marshall knew Richard Nixon.

    Richard Nixon knew Zhou Enlai.

    Zhou Enlai, of course, came up through the ranks of Mao Zedong’s government.

    So six degrees from me to Mao. Or is that five? If we really need six, then we should start with my mom. Technically I knew her first.

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  14. Let’s see, my mom knew Ann Landers and Dear Abby (née Esther Pauline Friedman and Pauline Esther Friedman) when in school in Sioux City, IA.

    I worked in Louise Erdrich’s bookstore for a few years.

    My friend Ilene was a volunteer with PHC and answered Garrison’s fan mail for a time.

    My sister once talked to the lead singer of Smashing Pumpkins while waiting in line for Mexican take-out (they talked about child care…)

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  15. My grandparents had a friend who lived out her final years in a nursing home in Minneapolis. I went with them to visit her once and there was a visitors’ book you signed when you went in. On the page before us was the very familiar signature of Walt Disney; looking just like it did every week on The Wonderful World of Disney.

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  16. I must not have many connections. I’m having trouble coming up with anything. I’m sure I will have lots of them tomorrow, and they will all be OT.

    I always thought it was pretty cool that I have this good friend TJ who made a few of my instruments, including my mandolin, and he is Renee’s cousin, and I “know” Renee from this blog. It’s a small thing and I don’t think there are six degrees in that combination, but that’s all I’ve got right now.

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  18. I used to work with the wife of a well-known local mandolin/fiddle player who played on Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album. Bob Dylan played for Barack Obama at the White House. Barack Obama published a book with Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen sang withJimmy Fallon on his talk show. Also on Jimmy Fallon’s show….Kevin Bacon.

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  19. I was conducted in the Concordia College Band by Antonia Brico, who studied with Sibelius, and who Judy Collins made a documentary about.

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  20. i used to work with a guy who pulled me aside at a sales meetings back in the day and asked if i’d seen that new star wars movie
    i had
    well i went to acting class with that harrison ford guy
    he was just an average guy
    but now he’s gonna be a star
    he was right
    i had a sales manager who was an old jazz band leader from the early days of jazz
    bix beiderbecke tommy dorsey and others got their start in his band the chubb strindberg orchestra
    he used to love to tell stories about the good old days . i asked him if he knew the gershwins and he said he had to distract the hotel management so they could load their bus and skip out on their bill
    william mckinley is my 5th cousin however that works
    my bass player from my youth is a big deal artist and knows a lot of the art folks today
    when one does or has a monster hit i ask him for a story and he usually has a good one
    my brother is a fine bluegrass player and amazing guitar player who ends up rubbing shoulders with lots of big stars
    he started with john hartford way back when the buddy emmons then a bunch of the guys on the wyndham hill label
    recently he’s playing warm up for some folks i’m drawing a blank on in the duluth festivals this summer
    i’ve met lots of authors playwrites poets over the years
    went to school with a salvador dali contact
    my dads dad was a professional baseball player in the 20’s and 30’s who struck out babe ruth
    my dad had roger mari’s as his batboy in fargo
    our next door neighbor in fargo when i was born was lawrence welks piano player
    i like your drawings cynthia
    publish that meat section

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