What I Love about Facebook

WARNING:  Sappy, sentimental post ahead.

I will admit to being a reluctant Facebook participant.  I had several "invitations" to join and I mostly ignored them for the longest time.  I still think it's easier to send a reagular e-mail to someone, but I've noticed that my Facebook friends stopped answering their reagular e-mails.  So, mostly due to three long distance friends, I signed up.  At first, eventhough it was interesting to read what my local and long distance friends were up to, I still wasn't that big of a fan.  I really love to read a handful of blogs and I usually spend my computer time reading those.

Then one day I thought..."I wonder if Ben is on there?"  Who is Ben?  Ben is my long lost, favorite cousin.  Now, any of you other cousins who may be reading this, don't get your feathers ruffled!  I love you all very much!!  I hate the fact that we live so far away and don't see each other very much.  But Ben.  Ben had all the cool toys!  He got the Incredible Hulk stretch doll (like Stretch Armstrong), he got the Evil  Kenevil guy on a motorcycle that you could pull this thing and he would ride across Grandmother's kitchen floor, and remote control cars!  And he always gave me turns to play with them.  We would play in Granddaddy's "office" and build tents with all of the sheets and blankets that Grandmother would allow.  Then we would catch lightning bugs and put them in jars and it seems like I remember some poor lightning bugs being demolished by a little boy.  In all fairness, I know I remember taking the legs off of some granddaddy long leg spiders. LOL  It was Ben who first introduced me to Alice Cooper and some other (so called) musicians like that.  I have no idea who bought those!  It certainly wasn't my grandparents. :)   I wasn't scarred too badly though.  I have fond memories of all my cousins, especially the ones who were significantly younger and I got to hold them and feed them and pretend like they were mine.  Ben is the one who I actually remember playing with the most as a young child though. 

So.....was Ben on Facebook?  YES!!  And so was another long lost cousin that I never even dreamed of having contact with again.

This post has been in my head for a while now, but I hadn't taken the time to write it.  This week there was a death in our family.  Right away, Ben and other family members were able to be told and we even "chatted".

I'm now a fan of Facebook.