AS much as we like to grumble about technology, it's striking how dependent so many of us have become on the Internet. The Internet can
reconnect you to lifeAn editor here who's a son of the South spoke fondly about Mississippi the other day and I wanted to razz him with a couple of lines from a song Phil Ochs wrote about the state in the '60s, when civil rights workers were being murdered and police were turning attack dogs on black people trying to exercise their right to vote.
But the lyrics wouldn't come to me. I left the meeting and went to my computer, convinced that somebody somewhere in the world had felt moved to type out the words to that 35-year-old song and post them on the Internet. Sure enough, I had the lyrics on my screen within a minute:
"Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of;I've recently been on the giving end of an online information exchange, too. I got an e-mail from a lady in California wanting to know how to make kishke, a Jewish appetizer. She was searching the Internet for a recipe when Yahoo! led her to a column I wrote several years ago about how it grossed me out to discover the ingredients of my favorite Jewish recipes. I've long since become a vegetarian.
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of."But she wrote such a nice note that I dug out my dusty copy of Mama Leah's Jewish Kitchen and sent her a recipe for the beef derma stuffed with matzo meal, bread crumbs, spices and a disgusting substance called schmaltz -- rendered chicken fat.
Now I have a new friend in California. In fact, her last words to me were, "I think I love you." What could be better than that?
As powerful as the Internet is for gathering and spreading information, its greatest value is its power to bring people together. In the last year, the Internet has put me back in touch with old friends from Hilo High who are now spread over the country. We've gotten so carried away with ourselves that we're planning a reunion this summer. We've invited some old friends who went to St. Joseph's and Hawaii Preparatory Academy as well.
Thor Wold, a songwriter turned system specialist for the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea, is coordinating the planning by e-mail from his perch on the top of the world.
He mistakenly typed in "mac" for "mc" in the e-mail address of one of our classmates and ended up bombarding some poor woman named Mel in Florida with details of our reunion plans in Hilo.
When the mistake was brought to his attention, Thor sent her a contrite apology. She responded with a gracious note about her recent experiences at a reunion of her husband's class of '59 on a boat in Mobile, Ala.
"We found ourselves on the ship from hell," she reported, recounting a tale of long lines, pointless inspections, no air-conditioning, scalding shower water, leaky pipes, smelly carpets, lack of electricity and toilets that wouldn't flush.
"We did stay afloat and the food was OK and the old friends were fantastic," she concluded. "We all got to laughing and comparing notes, so you see it's the people not the place. And we will always remember this time together on the ship. Another memory made to keep forever."
What could be better than that?
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at editor@starbulletin.com.
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