Then I was 17, I had a summer job at a small airport near my home. The phone regularly rang from callers asking something like, “What’s farther away, Louisville, Kentucy, or Little Rock, Arkansas?” The callers were men on break from their labors in one of the many textile mills in our area. They were betting on Coke bottles, on which city of origin imprinted on the bottom of their bottle would be most distant. I’m not sure what this story has to do with anything.