Facebook is a wasteland. I NEVER post anything personal: I post ONLY political stuff. I could give two hoots if anyone “defriends” me because of my beliefs. They weren’t real friends to begin with, and quite frankly, I’ve grown to the point in my life where I neither have to nor will in fact tolerate fools, so I say good riddance. Life is way too short to surround oneself with fools when there’s plenty of other great people around who are worth associating with.
I have only a very few friends left from former lifetimes who I’m willing to tolerate enough to still occasionally associate with. I never discuss politics with them and if they try to after warning them not to, I simply do an about-face and leave the room without saying a word. It’s surprising how effective such a tactic is. After about the third time, it never happens again.
In the mean time, I continue to develop new friendships; people who I have much in common with, people who are intelligent, thoughtful, objective, and who are in continuously-learning mode. People who can have rational discussions about a myriad of subjects. People who have something to offer me and to whom I have something to offer in return.
The one who went to Nam is interesting.
Oh, and his wife from one of Europe's smallest minority groups.
My Christmas card list includes an old friend who did 3 or 4 tours in the Nam, and ended up in prison for his art work. We've never missed cards even when he's in a different prison. Hard to keep up with his usernames.
You just have to keep in touch with these guys ~ when they're gone real history is gone ~ the warp and woof part that keeps the rest of it together.
Somebody here the other day was teasing me about trying to sound like a scholar ~ and maybe so ~ I think by now half the guys I went to grade school with are dead, or on life terms. That was Indiana's worst ZIP Code area then, and it is now. The other half are grandfathers living a long way away from that part of town. Every now and then though I call up the memories on the four guys who died in Nam. They're not around for the internet and probably wouldn't have had that much fun here, or Facebook, or whatever. I haven't forgotten them though.