Weather, Winslow, and Degrees of Separation

We drove over 900 miles in 2 days, from Durango to Santa Barbara. As we approached our home landscape, I began to marvel at the weather. California's coast has AMAZING weather! Barstow, on the other hand - not so much. Just bright white light and a ground that looks bleached by the sun.

As we arrived in Winslow on our first day of driving, the song stuck in my head and I wanted to stand on a corner and see what all the fuss was about - perhaps some woman would slow down to check us out. We DO have the ambassador pod with us.

We stopped for gas and then parked on the corner of the lot, right next to the freeway, to check email and the like. As we sat, a man strode toward us - well, gimbled is a better word - he had had a few too many. Expecting an appeal for greenbacks, but not too sure what sort of fellow he was, I closed the front door where I was seated. He emerged in full view at the sliding door, where Adam sat on the cooler. The brown skin of his face was beaded with sweat, adorned with black strands of hair and a bandana. He wore dirty jeans and a flannel shirt. While my clothes are often pretty dirty too these days, I felt a world apart from this man, seemingly lost to a self-directed life, to a community that could support him, or a family to take him in, He held out a pair of sunglasses. His hands shook as he said in a gravelly, strained voice, "Hey man, you got a piece of tape?" We both blinked. Sure, we got tape. Adam rummaged in our overfull cupboard of supplies and pulled out the roll of duct tape. The man held his glasses out..."Can you...?" Adam gingerly applied the tape to the left hinge, trying to avoid touching his scabbed, grubby hands. The man held the frame and tested it, holding it up to the sky as if to check for lens scratches. "How's that?" Adam asked him. "Good...it's good," he said, his voice shaking now too. He staggered a little. He paused for a moment and then came the stereotypical question: "You got a dollar?"

"Naw, man - I just fixed your glasses!" Adam chuckled aloud.
"Alright!" the drunken man finished loudly, slapping Adam on the knee. He laughed and wandered away.

This moment, like so many others, brings to mind the tale of six degrees of separation. I long to create a map that shows all the people I have ever crossed paths with and extends out to all the people they have crossed paths with, to see how many we have in common. While Friendster does this, it would not include such a man as we met this day. An acquaintance and random stranger brush-up database would be a lot of work for the novelty of counting out degrees of relatedness among this vast human family.