Found my first piano book, with the back page certificate signed by my teacher, Mr. Alfred Schmidt. I believe that he was 78 years old when he first came to our house in his little red Mustang. In the (really) small world department, I recently met Dallas Smith, a bass player from Arlington, VA, and discovered that we grew up in (nearly) adjacent towns; he a few houses away from Mr. Schmidt, in Audubon  NJ. This gets me to thinking more broadly. When people come together in any sort of common bond or endeavor, it is (necessarily) the intersection of divergent paths. Commonality is then undergirded by diversity. Collaboration is a unique melding of perceptions and experiences. Whatever might be considered in common becomes a starting point of uniqueness in a particular relationship. Then a new (common) voice emerges. And the individual voices are further refined. Growth - starting with the Ada Ricther piano course, book 1.