It's a really small world

My local city councilwoman sent me a birthday e-greeting today. This was a surprise since not only didn't I vote for her, I had no idea she was my representative to the city council. The fact that my birthday and email address are in her constituent database as something of note is a little creepy.

Along with the e-card there was a link to a list of interesting things that happened in history on May 5. I read through them--it's a very long list--and pulled out some that I found particularly interesting or that have personal meaning.

•1809 - Mary Kies is 1st woman issued a US patent (weaving straw)
•1834 - Charles Darwin's expedition begins at Rio Santa Cruz
•1847 - American Medical Association organized (Philadelphia)
•1862 - French army intervenes in Puebla, Mexico: Cinco de Mayo
•1891 - Music Hall (Carnegie Hall) opens in NY, Tchaikovsky as guest conductor
•1912 - 5th Olympic games open at Stockholm, Sweden
•1925 - John T Scopes arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee
•1938 - Phillies Harold Kelleher faces 16 batters in 6th, as Cubs score 12 runs, both marks are NL records off one hurler in a single inning
•1943 - Postmaster General Frank C Walker invents Postal Zone System
•1944 - Gandhi freed from prison
•1961 - Alan Shepard becomes 1st American in space (aboard Freedom 7)

I highlighted the 1938 event for a reason. I had never seen this on a May 5 history list before, but the record (unfortunate as it is), still stands. But that's not why it's interesting to me. Here's the thing: Hal Kelleher is a relative, and not even a distant one. My Aunt Betty, my dad's sister-in-law, is Kelleher's daughter. He was my cousins' other grandfather--the one not related to all of us. This is someone I saw at every holiday dinner, family event, shore vacation, and more.

I knew he had played for the Phillies, but I had no idea about this historical record. Frankly, it was just a weird moment when I saw such a familiar name on this list of birthday events.

Sam's quantum physics string theory just may have had something to it.