Social Media

I have over 1,000 Facebook friends; the same with Twitter, and some 1,500 connections on LinkedIn. It is true that I know most of the people on the first two but I am less discriminating with the third. Almost all of these connections are passive, i.e., they asked me to accept and I consented.

Social media have become the de-facto way we interact. I rarely post anything; when I do it is usually about my children or grandchildren or a story on KQED. Still, it is sobering to realize how many people I have gotten to know over the years.

I love people.

***

I used to tell my older kids stories about "Cyndi the Seagull." She lived around San Francisco Bay but always found her way to Sanibel Island, Florida for vacations, just like our family. My daughter Laila reminded me of this recently.

A more recent set of stories I told my older grandchildren when they were young was the "runaway" series. If a shoe went missing, it became the "runaway shoe."

Aidan's girlfriend Kelsey told me at lunch recently that her first impression of me was as a great story-teller.

Now I am partially retired, I need to return to story-telling. Thus, the memoir.

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