I love Facebook. I hate Facebook. I like Facebook and on and on.
FB is one of two communications programs I use to keep in touch with 649 family, friends and various other folks. I also use e-mails. I can’t manage any more than those two. Instagram (I have an account); Twitter (I have an account) and I think there are a few more – I can’t deal with at all.
I have kept in touch with friends from my teenage years overseas. Friends from another chapter in my life long ago keep me remembering some good times. Friends from my working life in Canada’s North with CBC are having babies, moving into important jobs, and doing some fantastic things with their lives.
Local friends and neighbours keep me “in the loop” when events are happening: community hall suppers, important meetings of community interest, new businesses opening, older businesses closing (especially in the time of COVID), all kinds of political goings-on – municipal, provincial, federal and international, and bits and pieces of just plain interesting “stuff.”
The above were all the good bits, right?
And here are the other bits – loud mouths, rude brains, horrible folks, extremely bad behaviour, uncalled-for remarks, depressing news, idiots, uninformed comments, and just downright detestable human beings.
The wheat from the chaff is a daily tossup. I get rid of a few folks every now and then – not as often as I should. But I really do want to know what people who are making all the noise that I don’t agree with want to say. It’s a question of “if you don’t know what they are saying, then you don’t have the whole story.”
There is probably another reason why I like FB. My mother was a great letter writer. She had quite a list of pen pals, as we used to call them. The list included friends from England, where she went to marry my father who had joined the Royal Air Force there. It’s where I was born. There were all her RCAF and USAF Wives Bridge Club ladies who were scattered all over the U.S. and Canada. And there never failed to be a birthday card and Christmas card to a long list of friends and family over the years. Keeping in touch with relatives and friends would seem to be in my genes and Facebook helps me do that every day.
And so, I check in quite often to see what my “friends” are doing, what their kids and pets are doing, what the latest good cartoon is, and what latest outrageousness is going on. And then there are all the wonderful things that are going on in our world – art, music, trees, and photographs of people doing amazing things. That stuff really gives me hope.
SHOUT-OUT FOR ANNAPOLIS COUNTY RESIDENT:
I proudly wear my fashionable mask from Dawn Oman’s Gallery in Bridgetown. Dawn is from Canada’s North – Yellowknife. She is a terrific artist and a good friend to all in our community. She has sold more than 12,000 masks to people all over the world, including the Czech Minister of Labour Jana Malacova, who was wearing Dawn’s Spring Bear Mask at a press conference in the Czech Republic. This is a fine example of what times of stress brings out in people. I will take my mask off sometime in the future but not just yet. Thanks, Dawn, for all you do for our place in the sun.
Anne Crossman is a former journalist and media manager. She now does volunteer work in her community of Centrelea, Annapolis County.
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