{"id":8943,"date":"2015-04-16T02:14:18","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T02:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8943"},"modified":"2015-04-16T02:14:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T02:14:18","slug":"community-grows-while-shrinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8943","title":{"rendered":"Community grows … while shrinking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Amarillo’s population is just a hair less than 200,000 individuals.<\/p>\n

It’s not the biggest city in Texas, let alone America. But it’s not an insignificant burg. It’s no one-horse town. It’s got plenty of stop lights, strip malls (even a few strip joints<\/em>), plenty of eateries and drinkeries. It has an opera, a symphony, an indoor football team, a hockey team and a minor-league baseball team. Its downtown has a 31-story skyscraper. Amarillo has produced its share of celebrities and assorted characters.<\/p>\n

OK, now that we’ve established all of that, I have this query.<\/p>\n

Why is it that one cannot seem to be more than two — maybe three — degrees separated from every other person in this city?<\/p>\n

The city’s been on a steady growth path for decades, but it seems to be getting smaller.<\/p>\n

Almost without fail each week, I run into someone who knows someone I know. Or I’ll encounter someone who’s kin to someone I know. I don’t think it’s necessarily that I have an inordinate array of acquaintances throughout the city, although my former job as a print journalist did put me in touch with a lot of individuals over the course of two decades.<\/p>\n

It’s just that I meet people I’ve never seen before. We talk for a minute or two and then I find out they’re acquainted with someone I know.<\/p>\n

It happened again today in a strange manner.<\/p>\n

I was at work today at the auto dealership where I hold down a part-time job. I met a new colleague. I introduced myself to her, she to me. We later ended up in the break room. We chatted a few more minutes. I asked her about her previous jobs. She told me she’d worked in sales at this company and that one.<\/p>\n

“How long have you worked here?” she asked. I told her nearly two years. I then mentioned to her that I had a career that ended a couple of years ago. “I was a journalist,” I said. “Oh, really?” she responded. “Maybe you know my boyfriend.”<\/p>\n

I asked, “What’s his name?” She told me.<\/p>\n

I damn near fell over. “Yes, I know your boyfriend. Very well.” I laughed out loud. So did she. I told her that I worked closely with her boyfriend for a number of years and after that little exchange I felt as though I’d known this delightful young woman far longer than less than an hour.<\/p>\n

Life is full of mysteries. They’re too numerous to mention.<\/p>\n

I am inclined after today to add one more to the infinite list of unknowable things<\/p>\n

Such as: How is it that a city this size can produce such familiarity, even among people who only moments earlier were total strangers?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Amarillo’s population is just a hair less than 200,000 individuals. It’s not the biggest city in Texas, let alone America. But it’s not an insignificant burg. It’s no one-horse town. It’s got plenty of stop lights, strip malls (even a few strip joints), plenty of eateries and drinkeries. It has an opera, a symphony, an … Continue reading Community grows … while shrinking<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[276,997,2269],"class_list":["post-8943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo","tag-city-growth","tag-indoor-football-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}