6 degrees of Arkansas

I want to play a game to see if I can connect myself to anyone who has roots in Arkansas. So far, I am 1 for 1, thanks to the wonderful Amanda Cofer.

It starts at the eye doctor's (again). It only took a week and a half of having to wear only my glasses to decide buying a new pair with the right prescription was worth the money. (Remember the eye virus that was not herpes?) So I went in and someone was shadowing my eye doctor.

(And a quick aside about this eye doctor trip. He recommended having a picture taken of the inner eye, because they can find out all kinds of things about your brain and blood and skin by looking around. It turns out I have a freckle on the back of my eye. Isn't that crazy? You can have freckles there just like anywhere else in your body. And like everywhere else, these freckles aren't inherently dangerous, but you have to watch and see if they morph into melanoma, so in fact, I'll be having many future pictures of my inner eye.)

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the story I'm trying to tell, except for the fact that there was this guy, not an eye doctor, shadowing my eye doctor for some reason I don't know and might not ever know. He ended up leaving at the same time as me, and casually asked if I was from Wilmington.

"No," I said. "I've lived here about two and a half years. I'm originally from Arkansas."

"No way!" he said. "Where in Arkansas?"

"Fayetteville." I never know how much I need to describe where Fayetteville is. But this guy knew.

"No way!" he said.

It turns out, when he was a junior in college, he had met a girl on a cruise who had just graduated Searcy High School. She was headed toward college in Fayetteville, and they had had a romance. It eventually fizzled out, as they were young and lived in different states, although they did manage to visit each other after the initial meeting. But, he said, he had been trying forever to find out what/who she became. He kept insisting he was happily married, and that he was pretty sure she was also happily married, but he just wanted to know.

I could totally understand. So I wrote down her name, he immediately friended me on facebook, and I told him I was about 85% sure I could track down this girl.

It wasn't hard. I called Cofer and my mom, and Cofer made the connection. It turns out Cofer's mom know this girls mom, and within seven hours, I had a name and number for this guy.

So: this guy in the parking lot --> me --> Cofer --> Cofer's mom --> the girl's mom --> this girl.

Who wants to play next?