usmbguest5318
Gold Member
So, I'm nearly 60 years-old. I grew up in suburban-ish neighborhood. We'd visit family members down South a few times a year, and they'd come to D.C. to visit us a few times too. That's how I got to know my cousins and other relatives. My friends were the other kids who lived in the neighborhood, the kids I saw every summer at the shore who really were just kids from the neighborhood in which we had a summer place, and the kids at school.
I got older, and joined local little league, so did my siblings and we all developed new friendships. I joined the Scouts and made more friends. Momma and her lady friends called on one another, and we kids were often enough in tow, so those were other kids in the area who I grew to know. Later still, I changed schools and acquired more friends, and a few of them I knew from home or the shore, but most of them lived hundreds or thousands of miles from where I did.
From time to time, mostly when my school played a game against one of my friends schools, I'd run into some of the other kids whom I knew from home or the shore because their parents had sent them to rival schools. Every so many years, my parents would decide to take the family to "such and such" a far flung place where one of my classmates lived. That was always nice because I'd call my classmate and tell them we were coming to their town and their folks would talk to my folks and we'd coordinate a day when we all got together and did stuff together. I could be anything -- sightseeing, a day in the park, maybe my mate's parents would host a cookout for us and invite some of their local friends -- but it was always fun. The grownups would always get along, but sometimes they'd have enough in common to stay in touch even after we'd left.
Back then there was no email, no Twitter, Facebook or Internet. There was "snail mail" and the telephone, and, of course, trips to the shore, down South or some city our parents though we should visit. People called one another. I called my friends and acquaintances. They called me and my siblings. Everyone wrote from time to time. "Bobby's baseball team came in first place." "Meredith's pony took second place in her class." "We've moved. This is our new address. Can't wait to have you come stay with us." At the very least, everyone sent, Christmas and birthday cards, and no matter what sort of letter or card they sent, it always came with a couple photos.
It was always a great joy to get cards and letters. It was something new to talk about. It wasn't that folks' news was so grand. On the contrary, much of their news was really rather mundane. These were the goings on not of a person on a TV screen; this was what was going on with people whom we knew. They'd thought enough of me, or my siblings, or my parents to sit still for a few moments, collect their thoughts and write a short note. It felt good to know they cared enough to do that. A phone call was just as good. Back then then when one was on the phone, the person on the other end knew exactly where one was: one was planted in a chair or on a bed. One wasn't multitasking. They'd called to give one their undivided attention, and one was on the phone doing the same.
Card, letter or call, it was a substantive and real connection and one and one's friends were working to maintain it. They were showing their appreciation and one returned it.
Of course, not all of one's connections were separated by time and distance. There was a connectedness in one's neighborhood. One knew one's neighbors. One knew their pets names. One's parents talked to the neighbors. One knew that Mrs. Westerly's mother-in-law was ill and that Mr. Ingersoll didn't like broccoli. We kids knew not to get out of line in front of Mrs. Ford's house because she spent her afternoons watching television in her sitting room and would always see whatever was going on outside and would tell on us in a minute. Mr. Armstrong loved to play dodgeball as much as we did and could be counted on to join us playing just about any sport that involved a ball. Hell, he'd even play frisbee with it. His wife could jump rope better than any of the girls in the neighborhood. They both would play tag and hide and seek at the drop of a hat.
People were connected. It was real. It was personal. It meant something, to us kids and, I think, to the grownups too. Those connections shaped our lives. They are what made a life be a life.
These days we have more ways than ever to be connected. I can join Twitter or Facebook and fire off a message to someone whom I've never met, and they to me. I get emails from people who address me by my first name as though they've known me for ages, and I have no idea of who they are. People who I don't know from "Adam's housecat" send letters asking me for money. One'd think I have some connection to those people.
These days we have more ways than ever before to form what I suppose are meant to simulate real connections, but are they? I wonder whether people, for all the appearance of having a connection of some sort, aren't actually less connected than they used to be. Back in the day, we didn't know what anyone's politics were, but we didn't care. We kids, of course didn't, but neither did our parents. Not even as young adults did we care. Even now, among the people with whom I have real and enduring personal connections, I don't care. I don't care because it's the appreciation, the respect one accords, not their politics, that builds the connection.
Unlike the connections I, likely many of you, made when we were young, the personal element -- having looked into someone's eyes, having head the emotion in their voice, seeing the exuberance and sincerity in their body language -- just isn't there. I think no matter what a "like" or reply or a whatever digital accolade one might give, one's brain knows it's but an ephemeral substitute for real connectedness. One doesn't build a connection to an avatar, email address, screen name, or ID, and I don't think, at the end of the day, one can fool one's mind into thinking one has.
I got older, and joined local little league, so did my siblings and we all developed new friendships. I joined the Scouts and made more friends. Momma and her lady friends called on one another, and we kids were often enough in tow, so those were other kids in the area who I grew to know. Later still, I changed schools and acquired more friends, and a few of them I knew from home or the shore, but most of them lived hundreds or thousands of miles from where I did.
From time to time, mostly when my school played a game against one of my friends schools, I'd run into some of the other kids whom I knew from home or the shore because their parents had sent them to rival schools. Every so many years, my parents would decide to take the family to "such and such" a far flung place where one of my classmates lived. That was always nice because I'd call my classmate and tell them we were coming to their town and their folks would talk to my folks and we'd coordinate a day when we all got together and did stuff together. I could be anything -- sightseeing, a day in the park, maybe my mate's parents would host a cookout for us and invite some of their local friends -- but it was always fun. The grownups would always get along, but sometimes they'd have enough in common to stay in touch even after we'd left.
Back then there was no email, no Twitter, Facebook or Internet. There was "snail mail" and the telephone, and, of course, trips to the shore, down South or some city our parents though we should visit. People called one another. I called my friends and acquaintances. They called me and my siblings. Everyone wrote from time to time. "Bobby's baseball team came in first place." "Meredith's pony took second place in her class." "We've moved. This is our new address. Can't wait to have you come stay with us." At the very least, everyone sent, Christmas and birthday cards, and no matter what sort of letter or card they sent, it always came with a couple photos.
It was always a great joy to get cards and letters. It was something new to talk about. It wasn't that folks' news was so grand. On the contrary, much of their news was really rather mundane. These were the goings on not of a person on a TV screen; this was what was going on with people whom we knew. They'd thought enough of me, or my siblings, or my parents to sit still for a few moments, collect their thoughts and write a short note. It felt good to know they cared enough to do that. A phone call was just as good. Back then then when one was on the phone, the person on the other end knew exactly where one was: one was planted in a chair or on a bed. One wasn't multitasking. They'd called to give one their undivided attention, and one was on the phone doing the same.
Card, letter or call, it was a substantive and real connection and one and one's friends were working to maintain it. They were showing their appreciation and one returned it.
Of course, not all of one's connections were separated by time and distance. There was a connectedness in one's neighborhood. One knew one's neighbors. One knew their pets names. One's parents talked to the neighbors. One knew that Mrs. Westerly's mother-in-law was ill and that Mr. Ingersoll didn't like broccoli. We kids knew not to get out of line in front of Mrs. Ford's house because she spent her afternoons watching television in her sitting room and would always see whatever was going on outside and would tell on us in a minute. Mr. Armstrong loved to play dodgeball as much as we did and could be counted on to join us playing just about any sport that involved a ball. Hell, he'd even play frisbee with it. His wife could jump rope better than any of the girls in the neighborhood. They both would play tag and hide and seek at the drop of a hat.
People were connected. It was real. It was personal. It meant something, to us kids and, I think, to the grownups too. Those connections shaped our lives. They are what made a life be a life.
These days we have more ways than ever to be connected. I can join Twitter or Facebook and fire off a message to someone whom I've never met, and they to me. I get emails from people who address me by my first name as though they've known me for ages, and I have no idea of who they are. People who I don't know from "Adam's housecat" send letters asking me for money. One'd think I have some connection to those people.
These days we have more ways than ever before to form what I suppose are meant to simulate real connections, but are they? I wonder whether people, for all the appearance of having a connection of some sort, aren't actually less connected than they used to be. Back in the day, we didn't know what anyone's politics were, but we didn't care. We kids, of course didn't, but neither did our parents. Not even as young adults did we care. Even now, among the people with whom I have real and enduring personal connections, I don't care. I don't care because it's the appreciation, the respect one accords, not their politics, that builds the connection.
Unlike the connections I, likely many of you, made when we were young, the personal element -- having looked into someone's eyes, having head the emotion in their voice, seeing the exuberance and sincerity in their body language -- just isn't there. I think no matter what a "like" or reply or a whatever digital accolade one might give, one's brain knows it's but an ephemeral substitute for real connectedness. One doesn't build a connection to an avatar, email address, screen name, or ID, and I don't think, at the end of the day, one can fool one's mind into thinking one has.