Get off the map.

Recently I actually joined Facebook. I know, I know. I am one of the last people. I usually am. I was one of the last people to see Forest Gump too. People were walking around saying, “Life is like a box of chocolates” and I thought they had all been reprogrammed by Hershey.

So, I have found that Facebook is like an interactive White Pages of anyone you have ever met in life. It is like a high school reunion on crack. And during all this I have found people that I thought I would never see or hear from again in this lifetime. Some from almost 30 years ago, some from my childhood.

I remember my grandmother talking about people that she knew as a child, or as a teenager. She would talk about them as if they were dead, knowing she would never see them again in this lifetime. As we would talk about them she would say, “I will find out what happened with them in my next life.” and there was a certain acceptance with that. Contact was lost in a world with so many people. And finding each other again, was truly a miracle.

Today *yawn* it happens all the time. The miracle is gone. Our children hear the stories of people in WWII finding each other some 25 years later and wonder what took them so long. Today, no one is lost….and, in fact, with the advent of Google Maps and GPS systems we can pinpoint the location of someone within feet of where they are at that moment.




I have to wonder at the knowledge of my day to day activities. Are they so very important? When did my actions begin to carry importance other than to those around me they affect? When did my thoughts begin to carry such weight that I needed to share them, immortalize them on the internet forever?

Look at Twitter for a moment with a skeptic’s eye. Do we really need to know when someone goes to the grocery store to get bread and milk? Or when you’re at a ball park and think the guy at third base is out? Or when you finally viewed the YouTube.com video of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent and got goose bumps? These are the thoughts of the common man. Not profound, earth shattering, life changing thoughts. It is cyber-clutter. Words, words, words….they are the words of self-importance. We feel that because we are special, because we are important, because we are different, somehow our trip to go and get bread and milk is different than every other person on the planet. We are common, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is a pleasantness to turning to the person next to you and saying, “That guy was out at third.” and they are the only one who knows what you are thinking. That is special. That is unique.


My words are not all that profound…so I will spare you the “You should listen to me, you are not special.” Because all that seeks to do, is say I am special…and you are not.

Don’t listen to me. Go outside. Get off the map.

Shutterbugs and Family Mugs

The advent of the digital camera was truly one of the greatest things that has come down the pike since....well, sliced bread. Since it is now one of the easiest pieces of technology to own considering that almost every cell phone comes with one it is easy to say it has changed our lives.

Gone are the days of having to run out and buy film, shoot it...make sure you have the right kind, enough and the right kind of light. Then once you are done shooting the film you have to actually take it somewhere and have it developed...and then remember to pick it up. All those bits and pieces...it is any wonder that digital has made our lives so much simpler?

But not only that, we now have the ability to take those pictures and get rid of the duds. Those horrid pictures that we would think to ourselves, "Well, no one is ever going to see that one!" and off to the trash can it would go. Or we would chuckle and think that we had the perfect chance to bribe someone with that photo that was going to embarrass them to no end. Now we have the ability to shoot the same shot over and over till we get just what we want. They are perfect. They are frameable. They are better than school photos or our wedding photos in many cases. Hail the advent of the digital.


And yet...I will stroll back through the photo albums of my family photos looking though each picture, laughing at the memories. I recall this, think on that, remembering not just what happened in the pictures but a myriad of other things attached to it. You see when we see those old photos we don't just see the people standing there and think, "Oh yes, this was Christmas, 1979." We look at the clothes. We look at the furniture....really; did anyone ever think that a velveteen all over brown floral print couch was a good interior design idea? We remember nicnacks, clothing, and haircuts. So much. Too much. We sometimes laugh until we have tears. This is the good stuff. Not the perfectly framed up picture.

People do not look and think, "well isn't that picture well thought out and centered, we did a really nice job Christmas of 91." No they think to themselves, "Good god, what was I thinking wearing MCHammer pants in gold metallic to Christmas dinner?" We want memories, not catalog photos.

I can't remember the last time I printed out a photo, other than to frame. I haven't held a stack of pictures in my hands that weren’t a decade old in perhaps five years. But I recall, going to the store to pick them up and being so excited that I had to open them standing right there in the store to see each and every one of them. They were treasures to me; the good, the bad and the ugly. I kept them all. Now only the excellent are kept. Sure my ability to grab the perfect photo has grown. But the shameful thing is, if anyone wants to see pictures of my kids I have to pull out my phone, not my wallet.

I wonder how another generations will look back on this one and wonder if we had become minimalistic, almost fundamental in our approach, sure we cut away the clutter.....but did we cut away the personality while we were at it?

Me? I will take my family photos with a dash of humiliation, a smidge of goofiness and just a touch of that awkwardness that somehow tells people when they look at us that "yeah...they aren't inbred...but they look like they are related."

I am off to buy some Polaroid film.


P.S. My apologies to the above family, which is not mine. You suffice because you happen to have the same couch as my grandmother...as did probably half the US at some point between 74-86. If I happen to get around to scanning a picture I will exchange it.