Okay, to kick this off during these COVID Times, where we are social distancing, let’s do an interactive connecting technology experiment. If you like these Bluebonnets, go here and like this Facebook Posting of one Sarah Johnson Swinney. Before you read any further, go on… come on… just do it now. These words and pics will be right back here in this browser tab just a’waiting for ya. If ya ain’t motivated for this yet, here’s a little more pandering motivation.
Oh, so you still haven’t clicked on Ma Swinn’s damn bluebonnets?? Okay, you like to support education and teachers. Believe that educating our future leaders shi-ite is important right there? This sweet sweet lady who only cared all these long years about teaching us to read…yeah that’s right Cannon Elementary School grad’s, it’s possible she was your 2nd grade or your Title I reading teacher. This lady would really get excited today if those damn bluebonnets on FaceBook got up to 100 likes!!!! Trust me, as she is COVID Quarentining, this 77 year old lady with the spirit of a 16 year old Ranger Gal dancing to Chubby Checkers or whoever that other 50’s bopper is… would just hang the moon if those damn bluebonnets got 100 plus likes. Still ain’t clicking and liking are ya??
Awwwww…. such a sweet sweet lady, how can you not click on those bluebonnets and like them? She even sang a cowbell song about teachers and schools at this raging outrageous DFW Literary Society Oscar Wilde Party. It was wheel’s off I tell ya.
Just click on those damn bluebonnets already and like that shi-ite right there!!! Have you no heart? Is your soul just a black crevasse that is so infected with the COVID that you don’t have the strength to like on those bluebonnets???
Okay, I think I’ve ran that joke into the ground. That’s what us Swinney boys do. You just keep at it and keep hitting it, until it elicits some form of reaction. If you are still with me by this point, I’m pretty freakin’ surprised. Connecting Technolgoy, what it does for us? During these times.
My gen, the X’ers, and the Boomer Gen, have Facebook. We are all over that stuff. The youngsters, Gen Y, have the IG (Instagram), the Snapple Chats, the Tik Tok’s, who knows what they are using?? It’s Tuesday so they probably got some new app we haven’t heard about to stay in touch without ever seeing each other face to face. While we are sheltering in place, the workplace uses Zoom. It used to be GoToMeeting, Skype, MS Meeting or some such. There’s a god-zillion ways to stay in touch. Get your friends together for coffee time, happy hour, whatev’s… that connection will help you during these times so you get to stare at something other than your four walls which must be getting pretty over-freakin-familiar to you by now.
Okay a few quick stories to illustrate the point and tie these loose ends of a circus tent back together. I was in the Air Force, a few deployments. One time in Saudi, after 9-11, the way to stay in touch was to get on a military phone, call a military base, and they’d patch you through to your wife and fam. There was always this echo you’d get used to and you battled time zones hoping they’d be there and knowing there was a few folks probably listening in so you made reference to that every now and then. I also sat in this wooden shack in these plywood booths in Afghanistan trying to carry on private conversations in much the same way. Note to others… do NOT joke while you are in Saudi and the fire alarm is going off because someone overcooked their microwave popcorn again…that it’s an incoming SCUD. Trust me, most things are funny but evidently that one wasn’t so much ;o)
Flash forward to the last time I got to go to an all-expense paid vacation to lovely Turkey and I had my phone in Airplace Mode the whole time, connected to this WiFi hotspot PUCK (not sure what that stands for) and I drove all ya’ll crazy at the time staying in touch. I could see my family at least once a week via FB Messenger Videoing, I could What’sApp and whatnot. It made that isolation and dislocation you sometimes experience (or at least me) go away. We were connected despire a little conlfict waging on. Hell, you know that sweet school teacher and her damn bluebonnets, I found out from a retired school teachers that Turkey had experienced a coup and all the power had been turned off on our base from her via Facebook Messenger before I knew why my laundry machine wasn’t working. That’s connecting technology right there. And keep in mind, my job there, was to be the dude in the know and tell others about it. Geeeezzz… thank the Good Lord or whatever higher power or force you believe in for retired school teachers!!! They truly are the saints in the city or country. Now click on those bluebonnets or just listen to this damn dog talking about COVID Quarentine times. Peace out.
ZandMe's 999 Good Things 