Tom Kirvan
Legal News, Editor-in-Chief
The concept of “Six degrees of separation” is a curious phenomenon, built upon the premise that “all people on average are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other.”
It goes hand-in-hand with the word “coincidence,” a term that is defined as a “remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another.”
Together, “Six degrees” and “coincidence” can boggle the mind in a multitude of ways.
A recent example came by way of Grand Rapids, where Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Jane Beckering and her family call home. I came to know the appellate judge last fall during a phone interview for a feature profile on the former trial attorney.
It soon became clear that I would be profiling a very special jurist, someone with the smarts and temperament to bring great honor to the judicial profession. Of equal interest, she has a zest for life and a love for various outdoor activities that she enjoys with her husband Ray, an assistant federal prosecutor, and their three adult children.
She also happens to be the sister of the current State Bar president, Rob Buchanan, her former law partner in Grand Rapids. They, in turn, are the daughter and son of one of Michigan’s most admired and respected trial attorneys, Jack Buchanan, the founder of the International Society of Primerus Law Firms.
Their respective success stories are of no coincidence, of course. They came through the tried-and-true combination of talent and hard work.
Since meeting the three, I have sung their praises loud and long to family and friends from near and far, including two former neighbors of mine from the Ann Arbor area. Those former neighbors, who have been my close friends for nearly 40 years, have three highly successful children of their own, including a son who just so happens to live in Grand Rapids.
While visiting their son a month ago, my longtime friends had a chance meeting in the side yard with his next-door neighbor, an Assistant U.S. Attorney whose wife is a state Court of Appeals judge. And her brother is the current State Bar president.
A coincidence, I think not, to borrow a phrase from a popular Pixar movie.
It did, however, remind me of another unusual occurrence involving several casual acquaintances of mine from years ago.
This couple, who owned a very successful retail business in Ann Arbor, were enjoying the fruits of their labor one winter, tooling around the Caribbean on a cruise ship with hundreds of other warm weather worshippers.
At dinner one evening, the couple began chatting with a husband-and-wife they were randomly seated with during the cocktail hour.
As an ice-breaker, my friends asked the other couple where they were from.
“We live in Michigan,” came the response.
That common ground prompted a follow-up question as to where in the Great Lakes State.
“Near Ann Arbor,” they replied.
Wow, my friends thought. What a coincidence!
“Actually, we live in Lodi Township, which is where a huge monthly antiques fair is held during the warm weather months.”
My friends, curiously enough, lived in a lovely subdivision within a half-mile of the site of that antiques show. When they said as much to their dinner mates, the couples soon discovered the most remarkable coincidence of all – they lived on the same tree-lined street within six houses of each other. And had for the past 15 years.
Six degrees of separation, indeed!
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