I've never been much of a "techno-freak," and still am not but if you're not on "Facebook," I highly recommend you get on it. Once you do that, you can search for "friends" (people you want to know what they're up to and don't mind them knowing what you're up to) or you can search for "causes" (friends with things of interest to you like "Save the Sperm Whales) or you can search for "Groups" (subjects of interest to you like historical photos). There are several of these referring to Muhlenberg County and it's communities. A great one is "Muhlenberg County Historical Group," which has lots of old pictures of our county.
One of the best (it was started by Taylor Watkins) is one called "Central City, KY memories." There are hundreds of old photos of mostly Central City, it's residents, it's buildings and houses and pretty much anything else that happened in our town in the past 80 years (or in some cases even more). Jackie Bowen went over to the Muhlenberg County Archives building at the library in Greenville and obtained hundreds of these pictures on a CD. He then proceeded to upload these photos on this group's page. It is unbelievable and is a "time machine." It has people who have departed this life long ago (and some recently) that were a part of this community and played a role in most of our lives.
Remember the old trampolines out by the Dairy Maid in the 50's - 60's. There's pictures of them on there. How about Mr. Fosco's famous Hot Tamale wagon that frequented Broad Street in the 40's. Yep, it's there too! Walter Creager? Rabbit Franklin? Wilbur Wheeldon? They're all there.
We've had a lot of fires downtown over the years in Central City. Some of the buildings were rebuilt just to burn again (J. J. Newberry). Most of these fires are in these archives. Floods - common downtown in the mid-thirties...got 'em on film. Remember Judge Campbell? He's there...so is Edna Batsel (Health Dept. Nurse) and lots of other folks who've entered and exited our lives.
I avoided facebook (still avoid "Twitter") and "MySpace" for years. I remember the fad of the seventies when everyone had a CB radio. We invented a new language with terms like "Good Buddy, Double Nickels (55 mph), County Mountie, Smokie Bear, Lordy-Sakes-Alive" and other strange sayings. We'd get on them for hours and "yak" (CB language for talk) and say literally "nothing." A typical conversation would go like this:
Wampus Cat (me): "What about ya, Ballyhoo? You got a copy on this one Wampus Kitty?"
Ballyhoo: "10-4 Good Buddy, you're "peggin' my meter!" (coming in loud & clear).
Wampus Cat: "What's your "twenty" good buddy?" (where you at?)
Ballyhoo: "I be at that ol' one Wal-Mart in the parking lot waitin' for Lady Ballyhoo!"
Wampus Cat: "That ol' Lady Ballyhoo not let you go in there with her?"
Ballyhoo: " That's "negatory" good buddy...she's afraid this ol' Ballyhoo would spend too much moola!" (negatory means "no")
Wampus Cat: "What kinda readin' am I puttin' on ya Good Buddy?" (CB radios have a meter showing how strong your signal is)
Ballyhoo: "Whooeee Good Buddy...you be "slammin' bout a seventy-five on me!" (that's a 75 reading out 100 - pretty strong)
Wampus Cat: "That'd be a big 10-4. Guess these twin ears are perculatin' tonight!" (twin ears are two antennae)
Ballyhoo: "What's that ol' Lady Wampus Kitty doin' tonight?" (What's your lovely wife up to?)
Wampus Cat: "She be doin' the laundry and the dishes. Soon as she's done we might run down to Sonic for a cone." Hope she's
got some money cause the ol' Wampus Kitty's broke til payday. Spent all my money on this "power mike!"
Ballyhoo: "10-4 on spendin' all yer money on that mike...I did that last month. Lady Ballyhoo didn't mind though cause she uses it
all day while I'm at work!"
Wampus Cat: "10-4! Wish I could get the Lady Wampus Cat to do that!"
Ballyhoo: "10-4 on that good buddy!"
Wampus Cat: "Well, Ballyhoo, guess I'd better shut 'er down and head for bed...6 o'clock comes mighty early. Keep yer thumb on
the button, yer foot on the pedal and yer hand on the wheel! Wampus Cat Out!"
Ballyhoo: "10-4 Good Buddy. That old one Ballyhoo is over and out!"
It was for this reason I avoided Facebook and other social sights because I was afraid I'd have to learn a new language. I'm not into "texting" like my granddaughter and I'm not too familiar with the language. Terms like OMG, BTW, and others are strange to me and I was afraid Facebook would require I learn these terms. I've found it's friendly, sociable and easy to use.
Speaking of "texting," my oldest granddaughter can "peck out" a message before you can say "Shazam!" She's faster with her thumbs than my typing teacher (Mrs. Clark) was in high school. Her messages make literally no sense to me but it doesn't matter...her close friends know what she's saying. She was on the boat dock up at Lake Malone and texted (is that a word?) a friend in Owensboro. She poked in about three paragraphs and there wasn't a vowel in the entire message. After she hit "send," she got back a "two paragraph" message that didn't have a consonant in it (something like "oooeeeoooaaaaoa aaaoouaee oeaiioeouuu....").
These new cell phones amaze me. I have a few friends that have iphones (I'm sure most of you do too). These are only "phones" about 2% of the time. The other 98% they're computers, levels, weather predictors, GPS navigators, gameboys, maps, libraries, telegraphs, ipods, thermometers (for my use they might as well be "rectal" thermometers) and whatever else you would need them for.
They've ruined the art of conversation as we know it. A group of us eat lunch together somewhere most days and usually a disagreement (nice word for argument) ensues. Most times it's over a subject none of us know anything about but won't admit it (this is pretty much a "manly" trait so you women just bear with me here). In the old days, the one who got in the "last word" usually won the argument, even if he wasn't right. We'd just leave after lunch and forget it. Those days are gone. Now when we get into one of these conversations, one of the guys simply pulls out his trusty iphone, clicks a few buttons and "voila"... there's the answer right there...in nanoseconds! To save embarassment, now all we can talk about is what we actually know - which makes for some short conversations!
I referred to typing class in high school a couple of paragraphs back. This new technology makes me think how far we've come. I remember in that class we had about two modern electric typewriters and probably twenty old "tanks." These were the old typewriters that had the letters worn off the keys and stood about a foot tall and you could see every working part of it if you looked down from the top. To get a "strike" onto paper you had to depress the keys what seemed to be about three inches....and they expected you to hammer out eighty words a minute with no mistakes. I never got close to that but I finally did get up to about twenty-two words a minute with about twenty mistakes. These old typewriters had their own characteristics and you had to learn what they were. Some had a long "return" bar and some were short. Of course the "electrics" had a return "button" (talk about state of the art). The first day of class, I sat at the end of a table (in the corner of the room). The "return" lever was to my right and you slid it to the left when you completed a line. Not being used to the "character flaws" of this particular machine, I typed a line and reached up to slide the "return" lever to my left. I apparently slid too hard because it became "dislodged" from the typewriter and slid to the other end of the table (about eight feet) before "slamming" into the chalkboard. Mrs. Clark (our teacher) tried to hold a straight face but came totally "unglued" with the sight. It scared me to death because I though I'd have to pay for it. She told me it happened to somebody every semester.
I guess the closest I ever came in those days to knowing a "texter" was when I worked at Corner Drug. Orville Brand, the store owner and Pharmacist could "hammer" out a prescription label, using two fingers in a matter of three or four seconds. He began using a "manual" typewriter like the old "tanks" at school. After he had been doing this for about five years he finally "sprung" for a new electric typewriter. If he ever made a mistake on a label I never caught it. I've seen him put Band-Aids on his fingers so he could type, even with blisters from typing so much. Eat your hearts out, "teeny boppers!"
My wife had her cell phone "fizzle" last week so she went to the store to get a new one. Of course the guy at the store is in the business of selling a thing called "upgrades," more than he is phones. In fact, if you get enough "upgrades," you can even get the phone for free. Upgrades are stuff like "Super Value Family Packages" or "Unlimited Texting" or "Free Unlimited Long Distance" (how can it be free when it costs an extra $30.00 per month?). My last phone was one that didn't have any "options," not even a camera (which amazed most of my buddies - how can you own a phone without it having a camera?). Guess what - my camera doesn't have a phone in it either. Anyway, as soon as the guy figured out she didn't want any "upgrades," but rather a phone (it did have a camera), he sort of looked "dejected." He couldn't believe we didn't "text" each other several times a day. He couldn't understand how we could cast a vote on "American Idol" without texting it in. I told him I've never seen "American Idol." I've never seen "Dancing with the Stars" more than a couple of times and "Survivor" (which we watch when we can) won't let us vote.
Shoot, if I wanted to vote for somebody on "American Idol," I'm sure they'd let me radio it in on a CB. "That's a 10-4, Good Buddy!"
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