FOND MEMORIES

FOND MEMORIES

I hired a tutor to teach me about the intricacies of Facebook, blogging, and tweeting. The original plan was to take a class on all this, but I get very distracted in large groups and can’t concentrate. This is what happens to me in a movie, which is why I’m still not sure why Colin Firth was in drag at the end of Mamma Mia!

Christine, my able instructor, spent a great deal of time with me.  She discussed privacy settings and asked if I was okay just having friends, or whether I wanted to have communication with people who were friends of friends. I went for broke and opted for friends of friends of friends because before computers, that’s the very method I used to select a doctor to do my first colonoscopy. Oh, and find a wife.

At one point, Christine asked me to publish something on my Facebook wall, just to give me an idea of how the process worked. For lack of anything prepared, I typed the following:

Thanks to Facebook, I have located three old high school girlfriends. Two of them don’t remember me.

Proudly, I hit the enter button and made my note visible to all 1,600 friends, few of whom I really know, but Christine assured me that this is just the kind of juicy tidbit that people who surf the Internet are looking for to liven up a dreary day.

Of course, there was no truth to what I had written on my wall. Trolling for old squeezes online would be frowned upon by Mary Ellen. So would my downloading questionable content from websites that she believes would have a detrimental effect on our marriage: do-it-yourself home improvement projects.

Within minutes, my Facebook page was abuzz with commentary about my post from former classmates. “Post,” by the way, is a new term I learned, and I’m trying to get the hang of using. Christine will be so proud.

So here are some of the posts that were posted in response to my post:

Dear Dick,

I was an old girlfriend. Can you find out how the others managed to forget you? God knows I’ve been trying for 45 years.  Charlene

Hi, Dickie,

Try not using your maiden name.  Ginny

Hello, Dick,

I’m not 100% sure, but I think we went to the Senior Prom together. Does that make you feel better?   Barbara

Wolfsie,

Your name rings a bell. Oh yeah, you used to copy my homework, steal my pen and call me chubby. Gee, thanks for reminding me.  Andrea

Dick,

We graduated in l965. We’re lucky we even remember high school.   Carol

Hi, Dick,

I remember you very well, but we never went out. Maybe it’s the dating part that makes you so forgettable.    Sara

I was a little embarrassed about all these responses suggesting I didn’t make much of an impression on women, but I hadn’t progressed far enough in my instruction to know how to delete them, so I called my Facebook coach....

“Hi Christine, it’s Dick Wolfsie.”

“Who?”