Facebook to *****

“Yer PRIVACY is the price of admission to the 21st century.”
I said that correcting a dreadfully long post to the Facebook of a girl with whom I attended college. I was changing “security” to “privacy.”
That girl was in the running. She was such fun to talk to I was interested.
Thankfully nothing came of it. We would have been at each other’s throats in no time. I married another college cohort who became the BEST friend I ever had. Cancer took her six years ago.
Yrs Trly has a Facebook. I do little with it. The fact I have one is due to a fast-one by Suckerbird and his cronies.
How this girl discovered me I have no idea. Perhaps I was suggested having graduated the same college. Facebook does that to maximize “friend” suggestions.
This wasn’t the first time. My first high-school “girlfriend” (?????) also contacted me via Facebook.
LA-DEE-DAH! We’re Facebook “friends,” as are me and my college friend.
My high-school friend lives on the other side of the continent.
“Are you who I think you are?” my college friend asked. “Pot-room at Houghton?”
“Nope,” I said. “Dish-Room.” She was “Serve-up,” then she put dishes away after washing.
So began our exchange of fond memories = our long ago yammering in the college dining hall.
Kierkegaard, metaphysics, meaning of life, etc. A fabulous discussion. 74 years on this planet, and I count people who follow my philosophizing on one hand.
That’s not elitism. I have too many friends not into philosophy. I often have to explain what I said. I avoid philosophy — people are interesting without it.
But I didn’t avoid philosophy with this girl; my wife neither.
52 years have passed since I graduated college, and I left that girl behind.
No matter! I consider myself lucky to have ended up with the best friend I ever had. She actually liked me, and after my childhood I needed that.
But it’s pleasant to strike sparks again with my old college friend. Perhaps we can meet sometime.
What follows is some of my Facebook post:
“I never regretted Houghton. It was the first religious institution that valued and solicited my opinions, instead of automatically adjudging me a threat to thems in command — i.e. rebellious and ‘of-the-Devil.’ That was ******** and ****** at first, then ******* and also ******.
I barely graduated, but can still recite Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet from memory. Also ‘WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour.’ That’s the opening lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English. *** **’s fault.
And every quagmire is a ‘slough of despond’ = Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.
I woulda been attracted to Bach anyway, but Houghton sealed it. ‘Brandenburg Concertos,’ ‘Air on a G String,’ ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’ segued into Louie-Louie on the Gao upright. (Click the link, *****; it’s the greatest rock-’n’-roll song OF ALL TIME).
Green Onions on the Steinway Model-D concert-grand in the Chapel-Auditorium. (“Once you’ve played a Model-D everything else is junk.”) —I lost piano with my stroke.
All that stuff still rings in my head — thanks to that funky little Podunk college out in the middle of nowhere. I’ve yet to figger out the microwave at my local grocery, which has a “Market-Café.”
I too attended my 50-year college reunion. The place no longer is what it was when we were there, but that bell-tower still rings every hour.
My turnaround from a dreadful childhood began at Houghton, plus it bequeathed me THE BEST FRIEND I EVER HAD.”

• “Houghton” (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• “Gao” is Gaoyadeo Hall at Houghton. It was a dorm, but also had a dining-hall. That dining-hall had an upright piano I often played, usually boogie-woogie, much to the dismay of most Houghtonians. Gao was torn down years ago. “Gaoyadeo“ is an indian term.