It has been a terrible winter here in northeastern Wisconsin. Almost every morning, we wake up to minus digits. The world is covered in white. It goes on and on. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder horribly and many of my friends are close to the same madness. And yet it could be a lot worse.
A few years ago, I was doing a summer tour to the West Coast. I stopped at a little diner in a town in North Dakota and talked to the owner. The winter before, North Dakota had been hit with seven big blizzards in a row. The owner told me that the town finally had Internet access. During that terrible winter, she got on Facebook and was able to connect with far away friends. "It saved my sanity," she said.
So in this winter, we stay glued to our keyboards and the social network. I write daily on Facebook and Twitter and this blog, and think of the generations before who lived through Wisconsin winters like these.
First I think of Wisconsin Death Trip a collection of photos and newspaper clippings from the 1180's to 1910 from the Black River Falls area. There was the horror of a Wisconsin winter. These were the days before radio, telephones or TV. Farm women were stuck in farmhouses for months with little or no outside communication. On rare occasions, the farmer might hook up the cutter and go into town to the post office for mail and a newspaper.
Women went insane and killed themselves.
In time, rural mail service was instituted.
Next, telephone wires made it to rural area. My father, a boy before the Great Depression, once told me that the party line saved my grandmother's sanity. The phone rang and along the line, ten phones were picked up. She could listen in and get all the news. It was the first social media. She finished raising her children on the same farm I grew up on. Then she moved into Seymour and created a social world with friends calling even in the middle of winter.
So, yes, there are farm women all around Seymour and they are all on Facebook. They are calling their children or Skyping with them.
So, yes the days are bleak here, but we are connecting with the outside world. I don't see any of them going to the looney bin this year.
So no matter what people think of Facebook and the rest, they must admit there is a place for them.
A few years ago, I was doing a summer tour to the West Coast. I stopped at a little diner in a town in North Dakota and talked to the owner. The winter before, North Dakota had been hit with seven big blizzards in a row. The owner told me that the town finally had Internet access. During that terrible winter, she got on Facebook and was able to connect with far away friends. "It saved my sanity," she said.
So in this winter, we stay glued to our keyboards and the social network. I write daily on Facebook and Twitter and this blog, and think of the generations before who lived through Wisconsin winters like these.
First I think of Wisconsin Death Trip a collection of photos and newspaper clippings from the 1180's to 1910 from the Black River Falls area. There was the horror of a Wisconsin winter. These were the days before radio, telephones or TV. Farm women were stuck in farmhouses for months with little or no outside communication. On rare occasions, the farmer might hook up the cutter and go into town to the post office for mail and a newspaper.
Women went insane and killed themselves.
In time, rural mail service was instituted.
Next, telephone wires made it to rural area. My father, a boy before the Great Depression, once told me that the party line saved my grandmother's sanity. The phone rang and along the line, ten phones were picked up. She could listen in and get all the news. It was the first social media. She finished raising her children on the same farm I grew up on. Then she moved into Seymour and created a social world with friends calling even in the middle of winter.
So, yes, there are farm women all around Seymour and they are all on Facebook. They are calling their children or Skyping with them.
So, yes the days are bleak here, but we are connecting with the outside world. I don't see any of them going to the looney bin this year.
So no matter what people think of Facebook and the rest, they must admit there is a place for them.
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