A decade ago, “Six Degrees of Separation” was a common party game. It was inspired when actor Kevin Bacon said that he was well tied into Hollywood: he’d worked with most of the pros there—and they’d worked with the ones that he hadn’t.
Inventive college students took it from there, creating a game which premises that everyone is no more than six interlocking friendships from knowing Kevin Bacon. Here’s an imagined example: Your Otsego County neighbor’s disaffected son left home for NYC and made a thin living for a while with a rented suit of armor.
He called himself “Sir Hal the Horseless” and stood on Times Square, hand on sword hilt, begging money for a new steed.
People laughed at the gag and stuffed coins and bills into a leather pouch at Sir Hal’s waist. The money was pretty good, and for a time the disaffected son considered a lease-purchase of the armor. But one day, a smart-ass kid, urged by buddies, blew a big cloudof choking cigarette smoke through Hal’s barred face piece, and then he dropped the glowing butt into the leather purse. It lit a clutch of crumpled ones and a five. Hal the Horseless reacted by swinging his steel-clad torso from the waist, right arm extended.
The arm was steel-clad, too, as was the hand. Hal’s chain-mail fist caught thesmart-ass across the left ear and knocked him right over the hood of a parked car. It was a Lexus, and in rolling over it, the kid somehow grabbed a windshield wiper and bent it right off. Trouble!
But by the time the kid’s cronies had him back on his feet, Horseless Hal had clanked double-time over to the subway entry. He disappeared from sight down the escalator; steel torso, then helmet, then ostrich plume.
Down below, Hal scraped through the special gate for the portly and the wheelchaired and clanked onto a Blue Line train. A clean escape.
Nearby strap-hangers, blasé New Yorkers, ignored the steel man stranding in their midst, and even the echoing coughs and wisps of smoke drifting out of his helm. One did say, “Buddy, you can’t light up in there.”
The next day Hal turned in the armor, sneaked out on his landlord, and took a bus west. Things would be better in Los Angeles, he’d decided. And they were, once he gave up being Horseless Hal.
He lasted only two armored days in the blazing sun of Hollywood and Vine, his own gasping breath filling and fogging the helmet, sweat pouring down armored legs and out their bottoms as if they were rain spouts. That was enough. Hal cast aside his East Coast gimmick.
He needed another, cooler shtick for out west.
At once he thought of his buddy and competitor back on Times Square. Year round, the Naked Cowboy stands there dressed only in jockey briefs, boots, Stetson, and guitar.
“Crazy nut!” Mid-West tourists laugh in embarrassment. But to prove open minds, they dump money into his tin bucket. The Naked Cowboy, still in his thirties, probably has a stock portfolio.
The Otsego young man’s further inspiration came from his own name, which was Vernon. He got thinking about George Washington and hatchets and “I cannot tell a lie,” but the ideas mixed in with the Naked Cowboy’s gimmick.
“Eureka!” thought Vernon. He’d portray George Washington, but fleeced to his skin by the IRS.
Designing the costume was a cinch: just a pigtailed powdered wig and a small barrel held up by straps over his bare shoulders. A sign at his feet would say, “Your Nation’s Daddy after the TAX MAN.”
The idea was a stretch, he knew; but everybody reveres the Father of the Country, and everybody hates taxes.
And the shtick worked generally well, especially after Vernon stapled fake gold epaulettes to his shoulder straps.
True, one day a purplefaced old lady did scuttle up and beat him around the head with her three-footed cane.
“Get out of our country, you Bolshevik!” she shrieked. “Go back to godless Russia!” As Vernon tried to shrug her blows, the barrel strapsslipped off his narrow shoulders.
The barrel dropped on his bare feet, breaking two toes. Then the purple-face lady screamed, “Flasher!” fainted, and crumpled to the pavement.
Those who’d stood nearby saw what caused the whole incident, but as more gathered, Vernon hoisted his barrel and limped away down Vine Street.
Other than that one incident, though, business was fine; and Vernon wrote to his Otsego parents that he had asteady acting job.
Really, he didn’t. But he did rent in a neighborhood full of acting wannabes. He shopped at the neighborhood bodega and always chatted with the amiable owner, who in turn sometimes chatted with a wiry young customer. This young man, who bought lots of yoghurt, worked as a stunt double. (Get ready!)
As KEVIN BACON’S STUNT DOUBLE.
And there you are! Your neighbor’s layabout son knows a guy who knows a guy who knows Bacon. Four degrees! You’re practically Kevin’s bar buddy. But take a deep breath.
I, Jim of Fly Creek, know Chuck Schumer, and he knows the President who’s been a guest in Buckingham Palace. That’s THREE degrees, friends, from me to royalty. Anne and I might as well pack for our own overnight visit with Elizabeth II, “Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Her Other Realms and Territories Beyond the Sea, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
Can’t you see us? We’ll sit of an evening with Her Britannic Majesty, sipping cocoa by a cozy gas log, we in our nighttime flannels, she in her white chenille bathrobe, tiara, and bunny slippers.
Relaxed and suddenly candid, Elizabeth II will lean forward and ask us poignantly: What on earth had she done to deserve her bumbling, constantly embarrassing family? We’ll commiserate, course, and Anne will tenderly pat the royal hand.
Then Her Majesty will wipe away a royal tear, smile wryly, and tug a gold-embroidered bell pull. A liveried manservant will glide in and serve vintage port all around.
And soon we’ll all be smiling, laughing, trading stories of crazy kin.
So much for your Kevin Bacon.
Columns
From Fly Creek: Sure, I know that guy
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From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
Time to bring you up to date on Fly Creek’s happy clambering into Spring. First, the eatery scene. “Is Jerry’s open yet?” The answer is, “Oh, yes!” The porches are freshly stained; the lawns a uniform green, and the hop vines are already climbing the posts on the covered side deck. Blue and I went up there to lunch earlier this week, and I celebrated spring with my traditional bacon, onion and Swiss cheese hamburger. We two sat on the deck, enjoying the broad view and some spectacular clouds marching across, up toward Schuyler Lake.
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In These Otsego Hills: More from 1986 ...
This week we continue with the discussion of telephone service from the pre-dial days. On March 12 we noted that: “No one has yet produced a telephone directory from pre-dial days, but Doug Preston of New Hartford recalls that some business (which one?) in the village had the phone number 7.”
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Home Notes: Celebrations abound at the Thanksgiving Home
April was a month of celebrations and much to appreciate. We had a 90th birthday celebration for Wanda Noyes on April 4 including her family and friends. Personal care staff Dee Bouck worked with residents to hand paint Easter eggs for the tree in the activity room.
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In These Otsego Hills: 1986 continues ...
This week we continue our journey through the columns of 1986 with the answer to the question “for whom, according to tradition, was Hannah’s Hill named?”
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Book Notes: Baseball book features local contributors
Baseball is part of the nation’s fabric. Most kids have a memory of the game either from playing Little League, attending a major league contest or meeting a favorite player. In Cooperstown that feeling is magnified since we are the official home of baseball. We get to see firsthand what has made the sport the national pastime.
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From Fly Creek: Ya really wanna know?
SETTING: Fly Creek General Store. CAST: Assorted seated geezers, drinking coffee. [Door opens, enter heavy-set geezer; walking slowly with wide stance, maybe prostatitis.]
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In These Otsego Hills: Returning to 1986 ...
For the past several years now we have undertaken sharing some of the area’s oral history we have collected over the years that we have written this column. Therefore, this year, we would like to go back to 1986 to share that rather unusual year. Those who were here then no doubt remember that it was that year that the village celebrated the bicentennial of its founding.
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From Fly Creek: For reasons unknowable
[Jim’s reached back to 2002 to share one of his favorite columns.] My father was born as the last century began into a river village in tidewater Maryland. He told me once of a man there in his boyhood who, like so many, made a thin living tonging for oysters in the cold months and, in the hot and humid ones, crabbing and raising vegetables.
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In These Otsego Hills: CCS balancing act ... side two
Last week we shared a number of activities in which students at CCS can participate. We thought it was an impressive, if not overwhelming, list. And we are indeed pleased that the young people of our area have these opportunities. However, we think it is also important to keep in mind that these undertakings do have a cost associated with them. They are not free. In fact there are, no doubt, those who would say they do not come cheap.
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From Fly Creek: A graceful crowd
Make of this what you will, friends. I feel I’m really meant to share it with you. Despite good medication for my Parkinsonism, every four or five weeks I can sensethe symptoms building up on me, giving me more than ordinary trouble. Lately it’s been falls, and last week brought a typical one. I’d gone out to get the paper, moving along with penguin steps on the snowcoved ice patches, and usingmy spike-tipped cane the waya climber uses an ice axe. But circumstances overcame me. Parkinson’s wipes out the possibility of multi-tasking.
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In These Otsego Hills: This and that and the other side ...
We note that the CCS Class of 2012 is presenting its senior class play, “Snow White” by Tim Kelly, this week with performances 7:30 p.m Thursday and Friday, March 29 and 30, and at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31. All performances will be at the Nicolas J. Sterling Auditorium at the Middle/High School.
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In These Otsego Hills: That green thing ...
Of late we have noticed that our email inbox has been much busier than usual. In fact, we find ourselves hard pressed to keep up with all the various messages we receive. As a result we suspect we have not answered some in as timely a fashion as might be thought appropriate.
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From Fly Creek: What you need to know
In their last Sunday’s bulletins, all 84 churches of Otsego County were to have carried announcements of an important meeting; most of them did. But because the announcement is so important, and not just to the churched, here it is again.
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Book Notes: Living the magic of ‘Hoosier’
A lot of people consider “Hoosiers” the best sports film of all time. The 1986 classic follows the exploits of a fictional small town Indiana high school basketball team in 1952 as it attempts to achieve the impossible dream of a state championship. The story is inspired by the true life achievement of the 1954 Milan team, who with an enrollment of only 161 students shocked big city power Muncie Central on a last second shot to win the state title. It’s the kind of sports story that represents something that is hard to grasp unless you live in a small town.
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In These Otsego Hills: The most perfect village... home to heavy industry?
We suspect we would get a whole lot more accomplished if we spent less time thinking, pondering and musing about things. In fact, there is a good possibility we might actually have completed our goal of cleaning the basement if we only focused on the task at hand, instead of trying to figure out the world around us. It almost makes us wonder if it is possible to think too much about things. We certainly hope not because should that be the case, we are in deep trouble.
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Up On Hawthorn Hill: The past in the present
Clichés abound about the value of photographs. Most are probably true at least to a certain extent. What I do know about an image is that it represents something of the past that is not the pastitself. But that is the power of any image. It represents something that once was. The beauty of an image, revisited, is that it functions as a catalystfor reliving in the present a past experience. My own view, one that I thank the Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges for, is that all we ever can experience is the present.
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Home Notes: Workshops held for Thanksgiving Home residents
We welcomed Linda Keller, Ph.D. of the Bassett Research Institute and Ida Baker of NYCAMH who presented a six-week workshop for residents and staff.
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From Fly Creek: Late-winter hamlet news
Well, at least I’m “guessing” it’s late winter now — in the winter that wasn’t. But, if not snow, I can provide a flurry of Fly Creek news to share with you, scooping Associated Press, Reuter’s, and United Press International, not to mention all local news services except our General Store.
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In These Otsego Hills: Waiting for spring to have sprung ...
Difficult as it to believe, both January and February seem to have flown by and we find ourselves turning the calendar over to the month of March, which we have long thought is one of the more dreary months of the year. Of course, as in the pastthere are signs of spring as reflected by the tapping of the maple trees. For many years, the trees sprouted buckets to capture their all important sap. However, we now know to look for the sap collection lines that are strung from tree to tree.
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Book Notes: Kennedy: a unique individual
It’s been almost 50 years since the Kennedy assassination shocked the nation. Since then much has been written about President John F. Kennedy and whether he would have achieved his destiny (whatever that may have been) if he had lived. It is said he inspired young people in a way that has never been equaled. And there is the notion of Camelot, espoused by his widow Jackie, that there will never be a time of hope and promise like that again.
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From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
