A Dog Named Keiko

Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the day we got our wonderful dog, Keiko. Since we don’t know her date of birth, this is the day we choose to celebrate her. So, happy “birthday,” Keiko! You have made our lives richer in so many ways.

A Place for My Stuff

On July 31, 2005, my wife and I adopted a dog. It was not an easy decision. We had two cats at the time, and adding a dog to the mix was certain to cause some domestic unrest.

“I’ve had dogs before,” I told my wife. “They need a lot of attention and can be a lot of trouble.”

We were not planning on getting a dog in the summer of 2005. One evening after work, we got a phone call from my wife’s cousin. He told us about this dog he had rescued from a co-worker who could no longer care for it. The dog’s name was D.J., and it was some kind of a border collie mix.

“You should come look at her,” he suggested. “She’s really pretty.”

The cousin lived near our house, so we went over that night. It had been raining earlier in the day…

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I’ve Moved on. My Facebook Account Hasn’t.

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author, Facebook, facebook sucks, fiction, hallmark, linkedin, social media, Stephen Roth, technology

One of the curious things I have noticed from my six years of participating in social media is that your online persona is not very good at adjusting to change. You might move to a new city, marry a new spouse or find a new job, but social media refuses to let go. Unless you take some drastic, cold-blooded measures, your accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. will operate under the assumption that the 2015 version of you isn’t a whole lot different from the 2009 you.

But how many of us have not gone through a significant change in our lives over the past six or seven years?

I’ll give you a personal example. From 2006 to 2013, I worked for the same great, big corporation in Kansas City. When I reluctantly joined Facebook in 2009, I began “friending” a lot of my coworkers, because it seemed a good way to keep up with colleagues I didn’t see or talk with every day. It also seemed like a savvy way to network within a large organization. A lot of people I worked with were aggressive in connecting with their coworkers on Facebook, perhaps for the same reason.

Long story short, I left the company for a new job in Kansas City at the end of 2013. Changing employers after so many years was stressful and challenging, but I eventually adapted to my new environment.

My social media, however, has not.

I still have all those old co-workers in my digital world, many whom I have not seen in the real world in nearly two years. LinkedIn is always encouraging me to connect with other people at my old company, even though LinkedIn knows damn well I don’t work there anymore. My news feed on Facebook is filled with posts by former colleagues. Many of the posts recount amusing things that just happened with coworkers at the place where I used to work. Back in the day, those posts were kind of funny. Now, they just make me nostalgic.

I have since blocked a few of those Facebook friends.

I know what I need to do. I’m not stupid. I need to sit down and coldly, calmly assess which friends from my past I want to keep, and which ones I need to cut loose. Many of them would not notice or care if I unfriended them today.

So I will do that sometime, after my child is put to bed and the laundry is done, and I am not exhausted from all the other things I had to do on that particular day. I will sit down, crack open a beer, and start clicking those little gray boxes next to some of my Facebook friends’ names.

It’s a small, almost silly problem to have, all these people in your digital Rolodex who are no longer an active part of your life. Still, given how big a role social media plays in many of our lives, I wonder what it does to our psyche? Even after you’re ready to move to a new chapter of your life, your social media accounts remain firmly rooted in your history.

And what happens when you make the ultimate move, to that Big Social Network in the Sky? Should your accounts be deleted, or should they be used to memorialize your life? These are questions that are being taken very seriously. Facebook recently unveiled a new policy that allows users to designate a “legacy contact” to manage their wall when they die. Many wills and trusts now contain similar language about what to do with all the social media accounts when the trustor passes on.

Like it or not, these are the kinds of things we have to deal with today. Makes me want to go delete my Facebook account right now. I would do it, too, if it weren’t such a big part of my life.

Stephen Roth is the author of the humorous novel, A Plot for Pridemore. Be sure to “like” his author fan page at https://www.facebook.com/StephenRothWriter

About Atticus

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fiction, go set a watchman, harper lee, southern fiction, Stephen Roth, to kill a mockingbird

For those people who are already vocally distraught about how Atticus Finch is portrayed in Harper Lee’s new/old novel, Go Set a Watchman, I have a couple of things to say:

1. Get a life.

2. Maybe you should reserve your judgment until after you have actually read the book, which just came out today?

As it does for many fiction readers, To Kill a Mockingbird holds a special place in my heart. I remember exactly where I was when I first read it, how the characters came alive for me, and how I felt a strange sadness when I completed the book. I wanted the story to continue. I wanted to learn more about Scout, Jem, Atticus, and Boo Radley.

Now, in a way, the story will continue. However, I do not plan to be among the first to read Go Set a Watchman. I want to wait a while. I have no illusion that this book will be nearly as powerful as To Kill a Mockingbird. As has been reported, Harper Lee’s editor recommended that she shelve the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman, and re-work the good parts of it into a new book. That is how To Kill a Mockingbird came about. In my mind, the “sequel” released this week is more of a nostalgia trip for Lee’s legion of fans, sort of like bootlegged studio sessions of Beatles songs we all know and love. I don’t think we should expect Watchman to be in the same class as Mockingbird.

To those readers who are appalled that Atticus Finch might have some racist tendencies after all, I think they need to put his character in the context of the times. He is a white, male establishment figure in a small Alabama town in the late 1950s. He is also, at the time that Go Set a Watchman takes place, an old man. Is it really so surprising that he has some fears and reservations about the prospect of integration?

Again, I have not read the new book (and, more than likely, neither have you). I do not know how poorly Atticus is portrayed. I know I loved him in the first book, and I loved Gregory Peck’s portrayal in the movie. If it turns out that Atticus is kind of a bigot in his older age, how is that different from a mostly decent family member who has some abhorrent views we disagree with? Most of us know people like this in our families. Do we negate their better qualities and focus entirely on the negative ones? Do we shut them out of our lives? Maybe, in these uncompromising times, that is exactly what we do.

I’m going to reserve judgment until I have read the book, but people are complex. All of us have a dark and ugly side. In a way, it’s somewhat reassuring to me that Atticus Finch might have one, too.

Stephen Roth is the author of the humorous novel, A Plot for Pridemore.

Be sure to “like” his author fan page at https://www.facebook.com/StephenRothWriter

Don’t Bother to Bring Your Skis

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czechoslovakia, holecaust, nicholas winton, Stephen Roth, world war 2

It is 1938. You are young, single and have a successful career as a stock broker in London.

You are making plans to take a much-deserved skiing vacation in Switzerland when you get a phone call from an old friend. You friend is in Czechoslovakia, aiding refugees who are trying to emigrate and escape the Nazi occupation of that country.

The friend urges you to come to Prague and help out. “Don’t bother to bring your skis,” he says.

Nicholas Winton decided to take his friend up on that offer. Because he did, 669 mostly Jewish children were able to escape Czechoslovakia and almost certain death in the concentration camps. Some of those kids went on to accomplish great things, and many of them are still alive today. Winton died earlier this week at the age of 106. His life story, and the incredibly daring escape he led in the days leading up to World War II, have been documented by The New York Times, and several films.

All of which would not have happened if Winton had decided to take that ski vacation instead of going to Prague and helping his friend. I wonder what I would have done if faced with that decision? I fear that I would have taken the easy path, and let someone else worry about world affairs.

“Why did I do it? Why do people do different things?” Winton told the Times in 2001. “Some people revel in taking risks, and some go through life taking no risks at all.”

What would you have done if you had been Nicholas Winton? Would you have taken the risk?