I just received a note on Facebook from my cousin, Walter King. He and I played together when we were six or seven or so, but then his family moved to Oklahoma. I have seen him but once in the intervening time, at a family reunion at the home of our cousin Charlotte, maybe 25 years ago or more. Walt, as it turns out, is an accomplished artist who has done work for O 
Magazine, PBS and Apple. He is also professor of visual communications at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio. In the What a Small World Department, Walter has worked with Michael Rosen, who included a couple of my pieces in his anthology Mirth of a Nation, and he works at CCAD with the artist C.F. Payne, who did illustrations for Ken Smith and me at Time. Chris, of course, was celebrated for a series of depictions of Santa Claus that he did for Reader’s Digest for a few years there. His model for Santa? Yep–his fellow faculty member and my cousin, Walter. Very cool indeed. To see some of Walter’s work, click here.
