Between any two people we now assume 6 degrees of separation. Across race, class, and geography, the line from you to anyone else has a maximum of 4 (or is it 5) people between. I wish though there was some way to add time as an axis. For instance, I'll draw a line between Queen Victoria and myself: My father used to caddy in New Haven. And one of the men for whom he caddied - this is in the 1940s - was a lawyer for Hartford Life, around 55. He'd grown up on the Lower East Side in Manhattan and when he was 13 and 14 had run errands for an old woman who lived in the West Village. The old woman was now firmly middle class, but still had pretensions of her former station. He went for her groceries and helped her put in new light bulbs. One day she sat him down and made him tea - he liked coffee more but didn't complain, because normally she gave him a dollar a week. And she told him proudly about dancing with the Prince of Wales in 1860. It was the greatest ball ever in New York. I was 19, she said. All the girls danced with him. It was 3 AM and I looked in his eyes. I had been introduced. Of course he was handsome; he was a prince. My father was a caddy, but I know nothing of I cannot draw a line between Queen Victoria and myself. Any such line is lost to history, or for those with histories written more clearly. m That's a lie. I can draw a direct line between Sinclair Lewis, Thornton Wilder, Martin Luther King, some doctors in Turkey. I wonder how many degrees between Hitler and Beethoven and I. In the history of music you often find it.
10 Decades of Separation
Between any two people we now assume 6 degrees of separation. Across race, class, and geography, the line from you to anyone else has a maximum of 4 (or is it 5) people between. I wish though there was some way to add time as an axis. For instance, I'll draw a line between Queen Victoria and myself: My father used to caddy in New Haven. And one of the men for whom he caddied - this is in the 1940s - was a lawyer for Hartford Life, around 55. He'd grown up on the Lower East Side in Manhattan and when he was 13 and 14 had run errands for an old woman who lived in the West Village. The old woman was now firmly middle class, but still had pretensions of her former station. He went for her groceries and helped her put in new light bulbs. One day she sat him down and made him tea - he liked coffee more but didn't complain, because normally she gave him a dollar a week. And she told him proudly about dancing with the Prince of Wales in 1860. It was the greatest ball ever in New York. I was 19, she said. All the girls danced with him. It was 3 AM and I looked in his eyes. I had been introduced. Of course he was handsome; he was a prince. My father was a caddy, but I know nothing of I cannot draw a line between Queen Victoria and myself. Any such line is lost to history, or for those with histories written more clearly. m That's a lie. I can draw a direct line between Sinclair Lewis, Thornton Wilder, Martin Luther King, some doctors in Turkey. I wonder how many degrees between Hitler and Beethoven and I. In the history of music you often find it.