small world

I contend the best networking tool you can have is a gregarious child. She is at indirectly responsible for most of the good friends I have here, all my local writing gigs, and my current university job, just by either playing with the right kids at the playground or even just having the same name as a kid around the corner. I'll give myself credit for picking up the ball and running with it, but she hiked it to me.

It happened once again this past week when she made a new friend at the playground, and it turned out they live right around the corner from us on our regular dog walking route, so we popped in for an impromptu playdate. After talking to the dad, I was shocked to hear that he checked out my book from the library on a whim when he moved to town. He used to be in an alt-country band in Athens, OH called Hank McCoy & the Dead Ringers, which I vaguely remember from my college radio years. When he said it was on Okra records, that struck a bell as being the home of The Schramms and the Ass Ponys, both bands I dig now.

Given the nature of cosmic connection, I suspect there will be a link to one of this site's frequent Ohio readers who I believe spent some college years in the Athens, OH music scene.

Above is the HM&DR album which I am determined to track down and listen to before I meet up with him again, my book, and my little networker in her Clone Trooper helmet, holding up a tray of Anakin Apple Crisp from the Star Wars Cookbook II that won second place at a Super Bowl Cassarole Cook-Off, which would have won first if not for some possibly over-zealous campaigning on the part of her old man.