We All Have Stories

Here's a picture of the group that met in Haiti a few weeks ago to discuss the way forward for a new hospital for the island of La Gonave.  That's me, third from the left, the guy Air France must have thought wouldn't need clothes that week. They did give me that very nice "Air Team" T-shirt to wear for the week, though.

I’ve heard on the news the last few days where the volume of Christmas card mail the post office is seeing has been cut in half over just the past couple of years. Our own mailbox supports this research.  Not too many cards come now-a-days.  Not surprising, and we can’t blame folks, can we, in these Facebook, Skype, and Twitter days of ours. Not even to mention texting and email and blogs. It is quick and easy and free to send a personalized, even animated, online greeting to someone. Facebook reminds me when it’s your birthday, so I don’t forget. And, I must admit, I love getting dozens of “happy birthdays” from my Facebook family of friends, friends I never would have heard from otherwise.

What has been lost in the transition to cyber, however, (at least so far) is tradition. The tradition of sending hard copy Christmas cards is quickly disappearing. Grabbing a handful of Christmas cards out of the mailbox has gone the way of the milkman’s daily delivery of milk to the doorstep.

Use to be, only old people reminisced about the good old days. Nowadays you don’t have be old at all... the good old days were just ten years ago. (Ah, don’t you just remember way back in the days before YouTube?). Pretty soon, “the good old days” will be measured in months. (Don’t believe me?... iPad-3 comes out this February, less than a year since iPad 2 was released, and just two years after the very first iPad).

Some folks are digging in, resisting the social networking scene.  I resisted, too, for a short time  But I have decided to embrace it. Twitter and Facebook serve as today’s water cooler, where people hang out.  Blogspot is the campfire of our times, where our stories are told.  I guess it’s not a matter of Facebook vs. the water cooler, Blogspot vs. a campfire.  Because in the end, it’s about the community and telling our stories.

We all have stories, like me wearing the same clothes for a week.  Now that's a story.