Ships in the Night

The ways in which social media increasingly permeate our lives continue to amaze me.  Minor setbacks such as Zuckerberg’s recent reversal of fortune notwithstanding, Facebook and Twitter have cemented themselves as fixtures within our daily routines.  They level the playing field, transcending time, geography, and social standing. 

I’m amused by what seem to be universal memes {and I use that word realizing that I’m inviting the wrath of the oh-so-cool internet ruling class, by definition decades my junior, who may quibble with my usage} among participants in the social media circus.  For example, there’s the unwritten parent-of-teenaged-Facebook-user rule, which holds that one may be allowed to “friend” one’s offspring, as long as one never, ever, posts anything to said offspring’s wall.  There’s the new user buzz – we don’t see too many “new users” anymore, do we? – in which newbie Facebookers are elated to have tracked down the daughter of the gas station attendant from fifteen years and two neighborhoods ago, whom they remember as being just a little girl hanging around the station (surely she will want to be a FB friend, no?)  There’s the celebrity-answered-my-tweet rush (needs no explanation… for the record, Kirstie Alley and Jim Cramer rock.)  And so it goes.

This morning I was reminded of a social media phenomenon that I’ve experienced exactly three times.  Addict that I am, I logged in to check Facebook before setting about my real-life day, and found one of those familiar right-margin “It’s so-and-so’s birthday!” reminders.  Normally, I’m generous with my ‘click-here’ happy birthday wishes.  What the hell, who doesn’t deserve a happy birthday?  So what if I’ve never met this person who friend-requested me out of the blue, and appears to live in India?  But this morning I didn’t click.  Out of respect for my FB friend’s family, I did not post anything to his wall; because he is one of my three deceased Facebook friends.

Steve and I were friends in high school.  We had parted ways after graduation.  He was headed off to join the Army, and I was off to college.  We hadn’t been all that close, really, though we’d shared some good times at a particularly formative phase in our lives.  Steve’s “autograph” in my yearbook reads “Laird’s don’t make soda” – an in-joke, actually directly quoting a police officer (more likely, he was a park ranger – we were too drunk to tell) who had arrived at our campsite and was shining a flashlight into the eyes of four wasted teenagers.  The conversation had gone something like “what are you guys drinking?”  “Umm, just soda.”  And, shining his light on the various bottles strewn about the ground, he commented on some awful concoction called “Apple Jack” that one of us had pilfered from a parental liquor cabinet.  Unlike any such confrontation that might happen today, this one ended pleasantly enough, with Officer Friendly asking “you’re staying put for the night, right?” (modern translation: you’re not going to drive that car tonight!) and asking us to “keep it down” (modern translation:  well, there can be no modern translation, as we’d sure as hell have been hauled off to the pokey, our stash confiscated and parents called, had this happened in the current century; but this was a different time and place.)  We were but a few weeks away from high school graduation, as full of ourselves as we were full of booze, and as aberrant as that night was in the context of an entire life, it is that 17 year old guy who will always remain the Steve of my memory.

I don’t remember which of us reached out to the other, but a few years ago Steve and I reconnected on Facebook.  We had several conversations, none of which had been particularly profound.  I learned that he had traveled a bit with the Army, gone to college, become an engineer, lived in Texas for a while, and eventually settled with his wife, son, and daughter in Vermont.  I shared the parallel tale that was my own story.  It was fun getting back in touch.  He was a good guy.  And then, one day, he was gone; although, eerily, his Facebook page lives on.

So tonight, old friend, I’ll raise a glass to your memory.  And I’ll be drinking something wayyyyyy better than Apple Jack.