The Miracle of Facebook

Lately, I am reacquainting with the people of my youth: classmates, mostly. It is the miracle of Facebook.

I have to confess that I have forgotten more names than I can remember. When I get that email that says, “So and so wants to be your friend,” I often have to pause long and think hard. Just who was so and so and do I know him or her? The sad fact is, often as not, I do not remember. I have always been terrible with names. I think I have a microscopic black hole that lives in my brain, at the spot where names of people are supposed to go.

I graduated from high school in 1972. That was 38 years ago. A few years back I attended our 35th class reunion. I had not attended a reunion since our 10th. At the 35th, I once again met Diana Rainwater, nee MacBurnett, arguably one of the prettiest girls in our graduating class, and still one of the prettiest women of her age (you can thank me later Diana if you happen to read this). She kept staring at me as a group of us sat around a table and talked. Finally, she said, “Who are you and what have you done with the Mike Wilson I knew?” She seemed perfectly serious.

Indeed, they voted me the “Most Changed” at the reunion. No one knew who I was until introduced, and then, like Diana, they would wear this look of puzzlement whenever interacting with me. Diana, Myrna, Greg, Tony, Lee, and all the others did not seem all that much changed to me. They were older, of course, and showed all those signs but were still essentially the same identifiable people as when we went to school. Somehow, I am not.

The point here is not that I am transformed. This is not the existentialist rambling from the aged and infirm. The fact is I got fat, gray, and lost the Coke bottle glasses through Lasik surgery. No wonder no one recognizes me.

Rather, the point is that Facebook is a convenient way to get in touch with people you did not intend to be in touch with when it required an ounce more effort.

Pretty harsh words, yes?

Let’s face it, not one of those people who want me to be Facebook friends now ever tried to hook up with me before Facebook. Moreover, while we are being brutally honest, I did not try to hook up with them either. All of those who stayed in the old hometown kept in touch with each other. However, those of us who left and went beyond the vale, (cute pun don’t you think) we were pretty much cut off.

This is not a criticism or a complaint. We have all moved on since high school in one way or another. We have had new friends, spouses, children, in some cases grandchildren. We have known love and hate, success and failure, joy and despair. We did some things of which we are not so proud. We did some other good things that many would not think us capable of doing, either for skill or intelligence or depth of compassion.

We all heard the same speech at graduation that had, as its theme, “this is just the beginning of our lives…”

It was true.

I keep accepting those invitations to “be friends” on Facebook. I do not think they are bad things. I think well of the people who want to become reacquainted with me. I am grateful that they still do.

Frankly, I would not have tried to track down me if I were they. I was not a particularly nice person, as I remember me, way back then. I like to think that, in this category at least, I am the “Most Changed.”

So if Facebook made it just enough easier to reacquaint, and perhaps rehabilitate, then perhaps it is, after all, a “miracle”.