Small World

by Sylvia Alber I guess we have all heard the phrase “small world” when we meet someone we didn’t expect to meet in some unfamiliar place. The small world concept first hit home with me several years ago when I had the misfortune to spend a considerable amount of time in a hospital waiting room in Lincoln while one of my children was a patient at St. Elizabeth’s burn unit. The waiting room where I spent so much time was never lonely, there seemed to always be several people waiting there for word of their critically ill family member or friend. So to ease the tension it was not unusual for us to make small talk with the other occupants of the room. I knew two families in Lincoln at that time, My husband's uncle and his family and my mother’s cousin and her husband, both wonderful families who took me into their homes and did all they could to make that difficult time more bearable. So it was almost without fail that during my conservations the names of these people would come up and over and over again, the person that I was talking to knew either one or the other of them. I was completely astonished that in a city of over a hundred thousand I kept meeting people who knew these people that I knew. Several years ago an experiment was undertaken to prove the “small world “ theory where participates in the experiment were asked to “find” a target person several states away. They were given limited information about this target person and if they didn’t know the person they were asked to send the information to the person that they did know that they felt would be the most likely to know target person. This study is where the term “six degrees of separation” came from. The target person seldom needed more than six connections to be found. Some times they were located in just two or three connections. Small world. My husband related a story to me about a “small world” connection. Norman was pretty well known I guess as his friend Chuck Van Boening was relating to him an instance where he had been in the eastern part of the state and met and individual there and upon telling this person he was from Bladen, NE. He was asked if that wasn’t close to Blue Hill where Norm Alber lived. Then Chuck went on to tell Norm of an experience he had while traveling overseas, I think it was Austria where Chuck & Mary were touring, but keep in mind, I heard this story secondhand, so I might not have all the details right, but I am sure of important parts. Chuck and Mary met and had meals with another couple on the tour, George and Delilah Ralston. The Ralstons were from Yakima Washington. As they were visiting the VanBoenings mentioned that they were from Bladen, Nebraska . The Ralstons stated that they owned land near Rosemont, Nebraska. Chuck came back with the fact that he was born in Rosemont, Nebraska. “Well, then maybe you know Norm Alber who farms my land” Ralston said. “Know him, well yes, I had coffee with him at the country store the morning before I left for this tour.” Chuck answered. Small World. Then Dan VanBoening had to tell his “small world” story. It seems Dan had a foreign exchange student living with him. He took the young man to Lincoln to a Nebraska football game. As they arrived Dan saw someone he knew and they exchanged greetings. Before long Dan was greeting another individual, and then another. “Do you know every one here?” the exchanged student asked. “Well, maybe not everyone, but if I don’t know them I know someone they know” Dan answered. The exchange student couldn’t believe that, with 100,000 people there that Dan would either know everyone or know someone they knew so they made a bet. Dan said “you pick anyone in this stadium, you choose the one and I know that person and I will know someone in common.” So the student selected an individual at random. Dan then went up to the individual, introduced himself and then said “hey, do you know Tom Osborne?” Needless to say the answer was yes. Small world.