Imagine sitting in a Toronto hotel with a phone book and dialing all the Smiths on the pages.
"Hello. Are you the Jane Smith who used to go to Downsview High School and broke my nose in gym class with your sweat band when it fell out of your locker when I was trying to steal your chem notes?"
I'd tried to do that once to find an Aunt of mine, only guessing her then current last name. Yes, I was bored beyond belief so it passed some time… Yes, I did give up early. We don't have to do that anymore, there's Canada 411, (though not always up to date!), ancestry.com, and !TaDaa! Facebook now!
I'd taken the big worldly step a while ago and got myself a Facebook account. My wonderful hubby had to help me through some steps, but there I am with my own wall! Now that I'm 'into it' I hope I'm not as personally involved and totally absorbed as some I hear about and observe! There are anti-Facebook websites, (and likely anti-everything websites!), but,..Last night I could've spent hours on the thing! A long-ago misplaced friend was 'on-line' and so we chatted, live!. Had it not been so late here I'd have asked for her phone number, but my voice and laughter would've been a rude awakening for said hubby! My fingers flew across the keyboard.
I had only picked her, out of the crowd earlier that day. Joining Facebook my hopes were to simply ask the service to find certain people, friends and family so I could reconnect with them. I had tried to find my Vicky before. 'Round up the usual suspects!' as it were! The list of all came up fairly long and the photos are quite small, so I'd poked some here and there that looked likely. Some folks leave their personal information for all the world to see, making it easier to figure out 'whoz-the-right-who'sitz' for you. I can see who their friends are and verify my pick with 'Oh, there's her brother, and her cousin and,….' So, yes this time I found the right her quickly and left a message which she answered, a little later in the day. The rest is history! Old history, we chatted a bit about, but mostly it was a discovery of a new friendship, new history! It's been 20 some years, I have grey hairs older than her teenage daughters!
Anyhow, I have a good long-distance (telephone), plan and will use it with Vicky soon. What really has me blinking my eyes and saying 'Huh?' is the number of people who want to be my 'friend' on facebook who are right here in my own little town!! Ahh, just stop by sometime eh?!! Ahhh, I guess I don't seem to make time to do that as often either! I've rejected a number of these people just out of need to 'keep it simple.' I don't want to spend hours on the internet at a time. It's very important to maintain friendships and in some ways using Facebook has helped that- one posting and you know x number of people will see it,…. don't have to do a call-around for club meetings, for example,…. Kinda lazy too!
Last night we finally got together with 2 other couples, live, in person! …Something that should be planned waaaay more often. There's still nothing that can come close to the real thing! We need to remind ourselves of that every now and then. Call a friend & meet for coffee! If you're out for a drive, drop in! You just can't e-mail a good hug!
(Amen! – ed.)
cute I liked it.