Random Memory Triggers

The phenomenon of social media is still making its inroads on my life, being a member of the generation that knows just enough to be aware of what’s happening in the early part of this new century, but old enough to not quite be on the up and up in terms of the pace of the development and change of technology and said media.

To wit, Twitter and an application, or APP, known as Untpped, which allows a user to check in whenever they imbibe a malt based alcoholic beverage, for the purposes of networking with persons of similar inclination (fellow drunks) and also various commercial interests (brewers, distributors, advertisers, etc.) was key to a flood of memories recently.

After checking in during a late breakfast following a yard work session I engaged in a discussion of the subject beverage of the check in in question and proceeded to engage in an exercise of metaphor mixed with memory that dug deeper than I expected it to. The beverage in question was an anomaly of a beer which called itself a stout and looked like a stout, but upon consumption drank like a lager and had similar effect. In my discussion on Twitter with a fellow beer aficionado I likened the illusion to hearing the knocking of a diesel engine behind you and turning around expecting to see a large truck and instead seeing a small Volkswagen diesel powered car.

This was drawn from an actual episode in which the event in question occurred. After my family moved from Kansas City, Mo to the Philadelphia area my Father, Brother and I would take an annual road trip back to KCMO to visit his parents and give our Mother a break from the Testosterone fest she had to deal with for the other 50 weeks of the year. It was on one of these trips, during an early morning in a motel parking lot, that I heard that exact sound and turned around actually looking up to see above the tall grille of the Freightliner or Peterbuilt Semi Tractor that I expected to see there (I was enamored with the big truck and was considering a life on the road as a driver at the time) and instead being disappointed by the sight of a diesel powered VW Rabbit idling in the next parking space. My Dad laughed to split a gut, and I had to grin myself.

I hadn’t thought of that moment in several years, and actually had gotten to a point where days could go by without me thinking about my Dad (which I understand is an advanced step in the process of dealing with the death of a loved one) but once I realized where that memory came from and started reflecting on it, I realized how much I still wish he were around.

None of this is bad, just unexpected in terms of the cause of the stimuli. I think that any thing that these new technologies and interactive media formats do to help preserve contact between people is extremely valuable. We are ,and always will be, social animals, no matter how much we try to hide behind our keyboards and terminals. We long for contact and interaction on some level or another.