Exactly seven days ago I received the following phone call from Becky:
 
“Hey, I woke up this morning and realized hell must have frozen over last night.”
 
“What do mean?,” I said.
 
“Well, I am sure hell froze over because YOU ARE ON FACEBOOK NOW!”
 
And so the odyssey began….

Exactly seven days ago I received the following phone call from Becky:
 
“Hey, I woke up this morning and realized hell must have frozen over last night.”
 
“What do mean?,” I said.
 
“Well, I am sure hell froze over because YOU ARE ON FACEBOOK NOW!”
 
And so the odyssey began….
 
I am the last person on earth (other than my dear friend Amanda Crowell) who would get on Facebook. I have for years espoused the evils of “My Space,” “You Tube” and the internet claiming to anyone that will listen that emails are the death of polite society. 
 
But I soon surmised that no one cared about my mad rantings as I continued to receive “You Tube” videos of dogs skateboarding and elves dancing. While I am a slave to emails, the moment I get an one titled “a friend invites you to join Facebook” or an email that begs me “not to break the email chain or else the sender will be cursed,”  I immediately hit “delete” without a second thought – if you get cursed - that’s your problem not mine!
 
So, I’m not sure what made me do it but late last Thursday evening, I was puttering around the house, everyone was in bed and I pulled out the laptop. And I typed www.facebook.com and with that ...the journey began!
 
First of all – for most of you reading this – let’s not lie. You too are on Facebook because I’ve found you on there. It’s a dirty little “forty something” secret that no one is telling. I could name names but for now…I choose to protect the innocent. (fyi…John B. you might want to ask one of your kids to show you something called “privacy setting”) 
 
Facebook, for those of you who have yet to take the odyssey, is this amazing website where you simply type your name, age, hometown, high school, college etc. and within minutes are taken back in time. You are immediately connected to all the people you knew “way back when”. And there before you – they each have a page – that basically sums up what they have been doing the last twenty years…photos of wives, husbands and kids abound. Information about where they live, where they work and what they have been up to is neatly packaged for all to read. It’s like a virtual high school reunion where you catch up with old friends…except you are sitting on your sofa in PJ’s and no one knows it!   
 
Friends post old photos of each other and chat on-line about the good times. And you get to take a peek into their windows and see how they are living their day-to-day lives.
 
So after spending practically an entire week on there connecting with old friends and new friends (I’m up to 82 friends so far!) …I must say the odyssey has been simply exhausting.
 
One lesson I have come away with though is that for the most part…. we all live very similar lives. Most everyone is getting up, taking the kids to school, going to work, coming home and getting on Facebook to see if anybody else did anything even remotely more interesting.
 
But I have enjoyed every single minute, hour and day of catching up. So much so that last evening, as I was on-line chatting with a friend from high school, I received the following instant message from my 46 year-old sister-in-law who is also a FB addict:
 
Hey – get off of Facebook and go feed your kids. They are hungry. 
 
I typed back…aren’t you too old to be on here?
 
She replied…yes, I am!
 
Angel Kane can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
 

Telling Tales 

Angel Kane and Becky Andrews live in Wilson County. This is their story (or tale) about their life, families and times that they share. Besides their weekly column Telling Tales Angel and Becky Co Founded Wilson Living Magazine. The idea of developing a magazine for Wilson County first came to Becky and Angel one afternoon while they sat on her back porch watching their children play in the backyard. 

They were discussing the outpouring of emails, calls and responses to their column “Telling Tales” and wanted to find a way to capture that community spirit. People were stopping them wherever they went to share their own “tales.” They suddenly realized everyone has a story to tell and many of these stories were amazing. And in that moment, Wilson Living Magazine came to life. Be sure to check out Wilson Living Magazine at www.wilsonlivingmagazine.com

You can read Angel and Becky's weekly column on-line at www.wilsonpost.com under the Style section.