Geezer Facebook
Back when my address was R. 1, Box 111, Bloomfield, Ind. and a long way from Kingdom Come, my concept of Facebook was a family photo album.
Today, I am living on the ragged, leading edge of technology (pause while suppressing laughter) and have a Facebook account on two of my three usernames, but truthfully I don’t understand much about how it works and it makes me all swimmy-headed. Each time I go on Facebook I have messages; “Welcome back to Facebook, Larry, a lot of things have gone on since you were here last. You have 2,356 messages, 398 pokes, 2,915 nags and 835 like requests.”
Years ago, people had to spend time at the barbershop or beauty shop to get the latest news and gossip. Others spent time over the back yard fence gossiping with neighbors. Others had to rely on the grapevine for the latest and greatest. To you still learning, the term “grapevine” meant how news is spread by word of mouth. Today we have satellites and Internet and other forms of very rapid world-wide communication, but it is still true, a lie or gossip can be half-way round the world while truth is still putting on its shoes. Get it Pres. Trump?
There are many of my generation who are too old for the prom and are already collecting Social Security and paying for that annoying supplemental insurance, therefore I am dutifully trying to help them comprehend Facebook.
The following is my response and adaptation of a short item sent to me by a loyal and true reader. I’m trying to make friends outside of Facebook while applying the same principles. So every day I walk down the street and tell passers-by what I have eaten and how I feel at the moment. I knock on doors and talk to people sometimes through a screen door and tell them what I did last night and what I’ll do later and with whom.
I continue down the street showing pictures of my family and vacations. They seem to appreciate and like what they see. Many say so. Then I show “selfies” of me standing in front of landmarks, having lunch and doing what anybody and everybody does every day. At the library, I tell everyone about my recent bunion surgery.
I am not completely narcissistic. The lives of other people interest me and I make attempts to show that interest. I listen to conversations, aimed at me and to those within hearing distance. To show support and interest, I give them the “thumbs up” and tell them “I like you and especially the stories you tell. Please go on. Fill me in; all the details.”
It works just like Facebook. I already have several people following me: Two police officers, a private investigator, a psychiatrist, three letter carriers, two rather large sumo wrestlers, three “Tekkies” and two relatives who keep asking me for money.
I must go. I have a shadow. You are old if you remember the radio program, “The Shadow.”
Larry Vandeventer. Go to my two websites – Larryvandeventer.com and wjrambler1956.com - purchase my books. I grew up North of Calvertville and Graduated from Worthington High School and Indiana State. Contact me at Goosecrick@aol.com or 317-839-7656.
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