Me: I’ll take Frivolous Facebook groups for $1,600, Alex.
Alex: The name of this group includes this word that means throwing someone out a window.
Me: What is defenestration?
Alex: You have just doubled your score, Richard, to an even eight million dollars, a new Jeopardy record.
Sit on that Ken Jennings.
Actually, there are two Facebook groups with defenestration in their name: “The Defenestration Zone,” with 8 members, and “Defenestration Magazine,”
with a whopping 114 members (All membership counts are as of June 4). Neither group has anything to do with throwing people out windows.
But this column isn’t about frivolous Facebook groups or pages like “Accomplishing Something Before the Microwave Reaches :00.” Or “Badly Stuffed Animals,” or “Boobquake,” (2,700 members, but it’s not what you think.), or “Physics doesn’t exist, it’s all gnomes,” of which there are at least five separate groups ranging from three to 2,600 members.
However compelling those groups and pages might be, we’re going to turn away from this tomfoolery and examine Facebook groups that our readers can actually use.
Many are useful: “Parkland Residents Community Forum,” “Moms of Coral Springs,” “Jewish Community of Boca Raton.”
Some are fun or hobby related: “Foodies of South Florida,” “South Florida
Fishing,” “South Florida Butterfly & Hummingbird Gardening.”
Others are nostalgic or history oriented: “Historic Florida,” “Florida Pioneering
A postcard of downtown San Jose, “back in the day.”
Families,” “Exploring Florida’s Historic Places and Abandoned Sites.”
I grew up in Santa Clara and San Jose, California. I’ve been away since 1980, more than 40 years. I’ve joined groups dedicated to people’s memories of both towns. I enjoy seeing photos of places I frequented long ago and lament reading about favorite haunts that are gone.
I love seeing photos of First Street in San Jose from the 1950s when I was very young, zooming in to try to recognize stores where we shopped, restaurants where we ate, the Fox Movie Theater
where my sister and I saw “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in 1959.
These virtual visits to my past put me
in a kind of ethereal time machine; one poignant recollection rolling into another; mind mementos of toy stores, Polly Parrot shoes, Superman comics, and 30-cent hot dogs from a tiny place on San Antonio Street.
I do, however, have caveats. It’s not all
a pleasant walk down memory lane. Repetition is a problem. Group members who don’t visit often post photos that already have been posted a dozen times, and caption them like they’re brand new. “Who remembers Frontier Village?” comes up at least once a week in the San Jose Memories group. “Who remembers the El Rancho Drive-in, the Spartan Drive-In, the San Jose Drive-In?”
Even more annoying for those
getting along in years are “memories” that haven‘t aged properly. As a septuagenarian, reading “Hey! Who remembers the 1980s?” just pisses me off. Or the ubiquitous “back in the day,” and they’re talking about something that happened in 1995. “Hey! Remember Wednesday? Those were the hours, weren’t they?”
Whatever you’re looking for on Facebook, it’s easy to find. There’s a magnifying glass at the top left of the page. Type in “Coral Springs garage sales,” or “Parkland politics,” “Winooski Vermont” or “Rawlins Wyoming,” “Roller Derby,” or “Nash Metropolitans.” You’re on your way. Second star to the right and straight on till morning.
By Richard Battin
editor@theparklander.com