This one was taken about two years ago, in my back yard:
Go back to picture #1. Can you find Waldo? Er, umh, Heusser-o?
Can you believe I've had the same haircut for fifteen years?
Serious this time: The modern age is tearing apart families and relationships. During the great depression, when you lost your house, you'd move across town and move back in with Mom&Dad, or Sis, or Old Aunt Ruth. The Modern Era tore apart all that - we've moved for jobs, moved for college, moved to the place of the country (or planet) we like the most, moved and moved and moved and moved. Relationships broke down; five years after high school, I had contact with zero - ZERO - people I went to high school with, and family was sporadic and occasional calls and emails. Now you can't move in with Aunt Ruth because she is a stranger that lives 2,000 miles away. You're stuck with no job and a mortgage you can't afford.
Yet we suddenly have email, yahoo groups, facebook and myspace. I'm more in touch now with some high school folks than was when I was in high school.
Not to be a pessimist, but I am convinced the economic tide is going to get worse - for an extended period of time - before it gets better. Basically, individuals have to unroll themselves from debt, which means less spending, which means banks will fail, which means government spending, which means inflation ... it's going to be bad.
What I'm wondering is - can we use these new social media tools - facebook, (cough) myspace, twitter, instant messanger and so on - to pull together in the way that families did in the 1930's? And what would that look like, exactly?
In the mean time, I made a post to the forums on Spaatz.org, which got me in touch with Alisha 'Copesetic' Christian(*), which ended up with pictures from ... 1995.
regards,
--heusser
(*) -it was a funnier joke when her last name was Cope, I know.
5 comments:
That's ok matt... I've had the same haircut for ~15yrs too. :o
Fascinating post. I almost commented here, but it got kind of long. I've placed it here:
http://testingzach.blogspot.com/2009/04/community-20-beta.html
Matt, amazingly I just got my hair cut for the first time in about 10 years to about as short as it is in this pictutre of all of us.
This made me smile :) If Alicia has any more from that time, I would love to see them :)
-Audrey (Koch) Diaz
It occurs to me, as high school classmates come of out the woodwork now on Facebook, that we're more mature and able to communicate much better now than we could in high school.
Hey Matt...I see what you mean, is that Audrey posting on this blog? Little red headed Audrey Koch from what like 13+ years ago???
Wow! Are you on facebook? I have lots of old photos :)
I hope all is well.
-Alisha (Cope) Christian
Post a Comment