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 Texas : Features : Columns : Letters From North America :

Twittering

by Peary Perry
Peary Perry
“I’m going to drink some coffee.”
“I’m headed to the store.”
“Now I’m at the gas station, buying some gas.”
“I think I’ll stop and get a sandwich.”
“When I get home I’m going to watch the news.”

Riveting isn’t it? Probably not. But for millions of people around this planet, these are the kinds of messages they receive each hour from their friends who do something called “Twittering.” Twitter is a social messaging program that allows you or me to send these little snippets about our lives out to all of our ‘friends’ who might think this is interesting. Some movie star is in a race to see if he can accumulate one million friends on his Twitter account. I hope he has a big house when it comes time for his New Years party.

I met a friend of mine for coffee the other day. While we were talking, I noticed that we were the only ones in the whole place who were not on their computers or who were talking on their cell phones. We were actually talking to each other face to face. I can remember when pagers first came out and your status was determined by how many or how few pages you received. Folks who wanted to appear important would actually pay someone to page them ever so often, just so they could appear to be popular. Crazy.

Pay phones were in their hey day. Always had lines waiting to use them. Now you’ll be lucky to find one if you ever need to use one. The first cell phones were about the size and weight of a good sized brick. Now they are the size of a credit card. You use one to take pictures, make movies, use the internet, text messages and telephone someone. One of my sons has a I-Phone with about 3,000 (maybe less) things on it. One of the things he loves is some application that makes the phone sound like a light saber from Star Wars. Why you would want this, I don’t know, but it makes him happy. He thinks people who Twitter are nuts while waving his cell phone around like he was Luke Skywalker. Different strokes for different folks.

Pagers are out, cell phones are in. Everyone has one. I refuse to give money to the homeless guys on the corner who are smoking cigarettes and talking on a cell phone while holding up a sign that says….. “Totally broke….need help….love Jesus….will work for food…” I need to be more sympathetic and forgiving; perhaps their mothers gave them the phone? No way, they look too old to have mothers still living, besides they always seem to have a dog…who has a dog when they are starving? I always just drive to the closest hamburger place and buy them a sack of burgers and give to them. Am I doing any good…? Who knows….I wonder if they Twitter? If so, it would probably go something like this:

“Black Lexus….gave me a $20…..wohoo….”
“Foxy lady in a Jag gave me some great clothes”
“Dweb in a truck (that would be me) gave me some burgers….Rover gets something to eat.”

Each day I get a lot of e-mails, mainly junk stuff. Poems, jokes, money from Nigeria, petitions, and chain letters. Most of the stuff I have to delete or just throw away. I don’t have time to read all of it. But every once in a while I get a diamond in that stack of trash. I get something from someone, somewhere in the world who is thinking about me and sends me something worth reading and keeping. I treasure these.

I suppose that’s what something like Twitter is, just a reminder that someone, somewhere is thinking about us. Our days are long and our hours are short. When we finally get time to ourselves each night it takes a lot of effort to just reach out and tell our friends and family that we know they are there and we are thinking of them. Thirty years ago, we didn’t have computers; long distance calls were expensive…now we can Skype anyone in the world for free. We can e-mail people as often as we like; it just takes a little learning to get on a computer and doing it. Things change, communication changes. My dog (Buddy Perry) has his own facebook page. He has more friends than I do.

I’m jealous, but not going to get upset unless he starts to Tweet me. Then I’ll cut off his cell phone privileges…dogs should not be allowed to talk on a cell phone. Makes me wonder where he gets any money…maybe he’s working on the corners with those other guys. I’ll have to check on this.

© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com

Letters From North America - April 29, 2009 column
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