Carrie and Facebook

“Well, here goes,” I said to myself, as I sent Carrie a Facebook “friend” invite.
Carrie was one of many people who’ve sent me Facebook “friend” invites I’ve avoided.
That’s mainly because I don’t do much with Facebook. I don’t dare. It’s locked this machine, and generally fights me.
Too many unknowns are going on in the background, so I never know what it’s doing.
Facebook is a nice idea, but it never worked as well as my family’s web-site through MyFamily.com.
Facebook is similar, although with Facebook I have 42 “friends.”
With MyFamily I had only eight, just immediate family-members.
Carrie has over 900 Facebook friends.
That’s the most I’ve ever seen.
I thought my brother-in-Delaware was in uncharted territory with over 400.
At the other extreme, I have an aunt in south Jersey with only one friend, and that’s my brother-in-Delaware, who set up her Facebook.
The fact I even have a Facebook is due to a fast-one on their part.
I got a Facebook e-mail friend invite from an old friend. So I responded — couldn’t hurt.
“To accept a Facebook friend-invite, you must have a Facebook of your own.”
I should have backed away.
Now I can’t; there’s no exit.
All I can do is not look at it, which I don’t.
Maybe once every two weeks or so.
I have Facebook friends who look even less; some hardly ever.
Yet I have “friend” invites galore.
What’s the sense of my responding favorably, when they never fiddle it?
Carrie was a photojournalist for MessengerPost Media, apparently during the final years of my employ there, and after I retired. (I retired five years ago.)
I never actually knew her, although I flew many of her pictures on the MessengerPost web-site, which I was doing before I retired.
Facebook asked me to “friend” numerous ex Messenger employees. I had to “unfriend” some.
I was getting bombarded with social-interchange I had no interest in.
Plus Facebook can’t seem to handle more than a few words. That scotches word-generators like me.
Carrie is pushing 36; that’s way younger than me — I’m 67.
1975; that means she was born nine years after I graduated college.
She gets to harvest the fruits of our profligacy: an atmosphere fouled by hydrocarbons.
And global-warming; possibly rising oceans.
I wonder if she gets to wear a breathing-pack? By then I’ll be gone.
I’m not actually a Boomer; born during the closing years of WWII.
But right at the cusp of the post-war Baby-Boom; the people that sought redemption and life-meaning by burning gasoline and coal.
So now Carrie is out on her own, no longer employed by the Messenger.
I hope she makes it as a self-employed professional photographer. I tried long ago, and gave up.
I know how photography can become drudgery, babies and wedding-shoots. It’s not the redemption it could be.
I gave it up because buyers didn’t seem to care what I was doing — what I thought looked good didn’t matter to buyers.
I also gave it up because I felt I didn’t have “the eye,” the ability to imagine how a picture would look when printed.
I don’t think Carrie has that problem. I know I was always flying her stuff on the MessengerPost web-site. Her “eye” seems much better than mine.
The ability to cut out distractions, like a water-tower or wires, poles exiting people’s heads, etc.
And color-temperature; the fact a camera doesn’t do what the mind does, like color-correct a snow-image.
I developed some of that through experience, but still feel like I’m shooting “and see how it looks.”
Some of my photographs sold nationally long ago, and I do a photo-calendar for a bed-and-breakfast.
But that calendar is by default.
They liked what I had, so asked if I could do a calendar. It wasn’t a “sale” on my part.
So now I’m friends with Carrie, her 940th, and my 42nd.
This was prompted by the old Facebook waazoo; that I couldn’t comment on one of her pictures without being a “friend.”
Plus, what little I knew of Carrie encouraged it. I sure flew enough of her pictures on the MessengerPost web-site.

• “MessengerPost Media” is a result of buyout of nine suburban Post weekly newspapers, by the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I worked almost 10 years following my stroke. (I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.) —It was the best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.) —MessengerPost Media had a web-site, and toward the end of my employ I was doing it.