The Global Neighborhood
In another section of this site, you will be reading about the adventures being had in California by my wife, Appomattox News editor and Chief Dragon in Residence, Pamela Matlack Klein. She is the person responsible for convincing our illustrious publisher, Linda Goin, to allow me to regale you each week with stories of my life halfway around the world. The gun helped.
Anyway, while chatting on the phone with Pamela the other day, it was I – from my current location in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands in the Western Pacific – who gave HER the latest news from Appomattox. I’m sure it is just because she has been so busy having adventures, and not because of ill effects resulting from attempting to drain the whole of Napa Valley by the glassful. Pretty sure, anyway.
The news itself is of no importance to this story, and truth be told, this story itself has no importance whatsoever either, except for the fact that I need something to write about otherwise there would be a big white space at Appomattox News where my column was supposed to be and the reader might mistake it for a blank Microsoft Word document and permanently damage their computer out of frustration from not being able to type anything on it.
I’d feel terrible if that happened. Not terrible enough to reimburse you for the computer, but still terrible. I guess you would call it a sort of hold-harmless type of terrible, which I hope you will accept in the spirit in which it is given. Think of it as the Chia Pet of sympathy. It means that you are in my thoughts, but I’m not really thinking all that hard at the moment.
But to get back to my original point – sorry, I had to go back and read what I had written to remember what it was – I found it somewhat amazing that here I am, halfway around the world, and I’m telling my wife, who is in California, about the latest news from our little Appomattox County in central Virginia. And that is because, yes, Virginia, the Internet has discovered Appomattox. Or maybe it is vice-versa, but most likely it is both. And it is not alone.
In my (nearly) half-century in this current life, I have lived in various places. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, then lived in Colorado for a total of fourteen years, not counting a four-year Air Force stint spent in Hawaii. And since 2001, Appomattox has been my home…when I get a chance to get home, that is.
I can keep track of all the current events at all those places, by the wonders of the Internet, and it’s not old news. It’s up to the minute, whether it’s news from America’s Dairyland, the Rocky Mountains, the Aloha State or “Where Our Nation Reunited.” I can even find out what’s happening in Atlanta, where my brother and his family reside. Or Naples, Florida, where Pamela’s family plants their roots amongst the mangroves.
Heck, I can go get news from places I don’t care about concerning people who I care about even less, and I don’t even have to buy a copy of People magazine to do it. Not that I ever did that, except for maybe the World’s Sexiest Man issues…you know, just to see where I placed. I’m still looking.
It’s not just the US, either. Whenever I’m working out in the Mediterranean, I make it a point to look up information on whichever port we’re headed next. It’s a great way to prepare one’s self before headed ashore. The Net hasn’t let me down yet, whether the next destination was a “lush paradise, vacation destination and the Pearl of the Old World” or a “famine-stricken wasteland where the hardscrabble streets are roamed by packs of wild dogs, jackals and the French.”
It’s something to remember the next time you’re watching CNN and hear Lou Dobbs, America’s Grouchy Uncle, talking about ‘America First.’ It’s a small world, and it’s getting smaller every day. The sooner we all start learning that – and start learning how to get along with each other – the better off we’ll all be.
You know, that’s a pretty good point. Should be, considering how long it took me to get to it.
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