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~ The hopes, dreams and random projects of author Stephen Roth

A Place for My Stuff

Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Mind-Altering Effects of Facebook

27 Friday May 2016

Posted by ghosteye3 in author, humor, media, observations, stephen roth

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Facebook, linkedin, mark zuckerberg, social media

family-generation-tablet-social-network

If you’ve read the news lately, you know that Facebook has been accused of manipulating the content it puts in front of 1.6 billion users, instead of providing them with a healthy, balanced diet of objective, well-researched information.

Facebook, some people argue, is cynically skewing the way we see the world, as if the social network bears the responsibility of some sort of public service instead just being a free, digital place where you can write “happy birthday!” and share photos of your adorable children and pets.

The company I work for sometimes buys Facebook ads that appear on the newsfeeds of people we think might want to use our services. One of these people sent us an angry message recently, telling us to “stop spreading spam!!!

“I didn’t like you,” he wrote. “Get off my page!”

Lucifer in the flesh? No, wait--that's Ted Cruz.

Lucifer in the flesh? No, wait–that’s Ted Cruz.

It’s not really your page, I wanted to tell him. You don’t own it or pay for it. The page, and everything on it, belongs to Facebook. But instead of getting into an argument about privacy rights with an upset truck driver from Thief River Falls, Minnesota, I gently instructed him on how to disable our ad with just a couple of clicks in his account settings.

Regardless of what Facebook’s role is or isn’t, any organization with 1.6 billion members has enormous influence. In an effort to test this power, I spent a full week using Facebook as my only source of news and information, just to see what it would do to me.

Here are the 11 most important things I learned from my week on Facebook:

  • That no one posts about the presidential election anymore, either because they’re sick of hearing about it or too depressed to comment on it.
  • That Winston Churchill was famous for uttering the phrase, “You’ve got to fight for the right to party.”
  • That a pooped puppy and a tired police officer fall asleep at an animal shelter, and you won’t believe what happens next!
  • That my friend’s wife likes to paint her toenails aqua before going on a trip to Cozumel.
  • That when you scroll across a link promising photos of serial killers when they were children, you cannot help but to open it.
  • That because you once listed To Kill a Mockingbird as a favorite book, Facebook thought you might be like to buy a To Kill a Mockingbird T-shirt or perhaps an Atticus Finch beer koozie.
  • That a photo that captures someone in the crowd holding up a smartphone at a Mike Tyson fight proves, finally, that time travel exists.
  • That you feel kind of dumb for commenting—again—on a post that a friend re-posted from three years ago.
  • That you really want to tell Hillary Clinton, “Get off my page! I didn’t like you!”
  • That when you scroll across a link promising embarrassing pet photos, you have no choice but to open it.
  • That most people want to just post pictures of their kid graduating high school or a good-looking sunset, or they want to wish someone happy birthday—which is what Facebook was designed for in the first place.

A Lazy Stroll with Digby Willers

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, author, fiction, humor, stephen roth

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a plot for pridemore, mercer university press, Stephen Roth

This month marks two years since my first novel, A Plot for Pridemore, was published by Mercer University Press. I have a hard time believing it has been that long since the first copies arrived on my doorstep, and I held in my hands the product I had spent so many years working on. It seems like only yesterday.

P1030298

I recently completed a second work of fiction, and I hope to tell you more about it in the near future. In the meantime, I’d like to share an excerpt from Pridemore that introduces Digby Willers, a character who plays a decisive role in the scheme to bring notoriety to the small town of Pridemore, Missouri:

A few blocks away, Digby Willers kicked an old soda can and whooped with delight as it bounced across Main Street and clanked against a curb.

He had kicked the can through most of the downtown business strip, from Saynor Circle to the blinking stoplight at Dunbar Street. The can left scuff marks on his new pair of Dingos, but Digby didn’t mind. The marks, he thought, gave the boots a real-life cowboy look.

Pang! He kicked the can into the street near the faded centerlines. It was an unseasonably hot, breezeless afternoon in late May that left the courthouse flags sagging and stray dogs sprawled and panting in the shade of a few parked cars along Pridemore’s main drag. Digby kicked his can against the stucco walls of The Lizard Lounge, which closed after Willie Larson shot Alan Carr in the thigh over some girl they were both seeing. Digby kept on kicking past the abandoned Westbrook Feed & Seed and he playfully range the big brass bell outside Truman’s Malt Shop, which no one answered because the shop’s owner, Ernie Tate, was in Farley getting an alternator for his Monte Carlo.

Anyone who strayed out into the 90-degree heat at that particular moment (and most locals had more sense than to do something like that) couldn’t have missed the 6-foot-3-inch, 280-pound man-child zigzagging his way up Main Street. Digby wore army fatigue cut-offs, an orange T-shirt smeared with peanut butter and jelly, and a Cub Scout cap that sat on the back of his head like a navy blue beanie. He had a round face with cheeks that turned crimson at the first sign of embarrassment and thick lips that curled into a slow, open-mouthed smile. His hair, yellow as lemon custard, rolled over his ears in long bangs that gave him a Prince Valiant look. Digby cared very little about that. He just knew that he hated getting haircuts.

Today, the hair was matted around his brow like a helmet. His sweaty hands clutched a brand-new five-dollar bill, as well as a perfectly smooth stone that would be great for skipping if there were a lake nearby and someone to teach him how to do it.

Several other stones scraped each other in Digby’s fatigues as he hopped the curb and stepped inside Sanderson’s Hardware, a jingling bell on the door announcing his arrival. He basked in the air conditioning and wiped his face with his shirt. The clerk, a skinny kid in a bright red apron, studied him a moment, then shook his head and walked to the back of the store.

“Hiya, Digby,” Red Sanderson called out from behind his old iron cash register. “Come to get your hot rod, I suppose?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, let’s have us a look.”

Sanderson led Digby down Aisle B, where the Pinewood Derby kits were stacked on a shelf about waist high. He watched Digby pick up one kit, examine it closely, then pick up another. Aside from the clerk, he and Digby were the only ones in the store.

The Pinewood Derby for the Cub Scouts’ Yellow Jacket District was more than two months away. But for Digby, who’d won the race nine of the past 10 years, that was barely enough time to make a serviceable racing car from a scrawny block of pine. Each May, he bought his kit the first week Sanderson’s had them in stock. He spent June and July in his mom’s garage, carving the block into an aerodynamic form and sanding it to a smooth finish. He even sanded the plastic wheels because he thought it made them faster. He topped it off by painting the car blue with white numbers and red stripes. One year he painted his car green and gold, which looked pretty cool, but he lost the final heat to Timmy Thurson.

Digby returned to the blue-and-red color scheme and hadn’t lost since. That was seven years ago. Competing against a field of mostly 10- and 11-year-olds, he was the Dale Earnhardt of Pinewood Derby racing in Pridemore.

Naturally, parents complained. The scouting committee hemmed and hawed for years on the issue, briefly making Digby an “honorary” racer, meaning whoever finished behind him could get a trophy, too. This pleased absolutely no one, and the grumbling intensified. When it came to racing little blocks of pine down a 30-foot ramp, Digby Willers was as polarizing as Rush Limbaugh or the Dixie Chicks. You loved him or hated him. There was no middle ground.

Sanderson watched for several minutes as Digby sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at seven or eight kits spread before him. Sanderson was exceedingly patient, something he honed after taking on a grenade in North Korea and spending a year in a VA hospital as they put him back together again. He could spend hours playing with his grandkids or needle-pointing a landscape of his lake house. Or he could sit behind his register, read an old paperback and wait to hear that bell on the double doors. Sometimes hours would pass between the rings.

“You gonna pick one out? They’re all the same, you know,” he said with a wink as Digby arranged more kits on the floor.

Digby stared at Sanderson as if the old man couldn’t possibly be serious, then returned to studying the kits. After a few minutes of pondering, he chose a favorite, helped Sanderson return the other kits to the shelf and followed the old man to the cash register.

“You give ‘em hell this year, Digby,” he said, ringing up the kit and putting it in a paper sack. “You hold on to that trophy.”

Digby nodded and grinned. He waved to Sanderson and the skinny clerk as he skipped out the door. The soda can was right where he left it, so he gave it a nice, swift kick.

“That’s a good boy right there,” Sanderson said. “Wish there were more like him.”

“That boy is 22 years old going on two,” the clerk said with a snicker. “What do they call it – water on the brain?”

The old man glared at the clerk before tossing him a plunger from Aisle C.

“Clean the toilet, smart guy,” Sanderson said.

To read more of A Plot for Pridemore, visit Amazon.com or Mercer University Press.

I am NOT a Granddad!

06 Friday May 2016

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, humor, my life, observations, parenthood, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aging, author, children, grandparents, humor, parenting, Stephen Roth

NOT a photo of me and my child.

NOT a photo of me and my child.

It’s only happened a few times, but I remember each one vividly and painfully, the way you might recall a bee sting or getting a really bad spanking when you were a kid.

The first time happened when my son was just a few weeks old. It was a warm, spring evening and I was pushing him around the neighborhood in his new stroller when we passed a plump, platinum-haired lady who lived across the street from us and whom we knew slightly. In fact, my wife had just purchased a photo print from the lady at her garage sale a few days earlier.

The lady stood before us, stooped toward the stroller to inspect my child, and cooed, “Oh, what a beautiful little grandson you have!”

My mouth dropped open. This batty old bird lived a hundred feet from our home. Surely she knew we had just had a baby. At the very least, she must have noticed the cardboard stork and blue balloons in our yard.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I stammered before pulling the canopy over my son and hurrying back home, frightened and ashamed.

The second time happened just a few months later. I was at home awaiting a service appointment, and I answered the door with the baby in my arms.

“Sorry I’m late, Mr. Roth,” said the handyman with the ripped Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirt and the slight stench of marijuana smoke. “Oh, hey, nice grandkid!”

“He’s my son,” I said tersely.

“Wow! My bad! I guess I just—”

“—That’s okay,” I replied. It really wasn’t, though. I felt a strange panic invade my body. Being a new dad in my late 30s, I expected to be the oldest person at my child’s Gymboree music circle and at all the daycare holiday parties. But did people really think I was a grandfather? Was this how it was going to be for me throughout my son’s growing-up years?

“It’s because you’re bald,” one of our less-tactful friends advised, giving me a pitying little pat on the shoulder.

Thankfully, several years passed before another well-meaning stranger mistook my perch in the family tree.

My son wasn’t even with me a few days ago when I purchased a little something for my wife for Mother’s Day.

“What a cool gift,” said, the chatty, 20-something clerk with onyx studs the size of nickels in both of his ears. “Somebody is going to have a very nice Grandmother’s Day!”

My first thought when I heard this comment was to say, “My grandmother is dead.” Then, it dawned on me that he wasn’t talking about my grandma. The clerk was implying that my wife was a grandmother—and I was a granddad.

I just smiled and nodded, anxious to complete the transaction and return to my office, where I will likely toil for 20 more years before reaching the age when most granddads can retire.

This case of mistaken identity is probably going to happen more frequently as I continue to age. Hopefully, at least, people will perceive me as one of the cool grandpas, like the Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World,” or one of those grey-haired guys in a Cialis ad, driving his classic Camaro home and always finding that the light is on in the upstairs bedroom window.

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Thru-hiking. Truck-driving. Miles.

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I have people to kill, lives to ruin, plagues to bring, and worlds to destroy. I am not the Angel of Death. I'm a fiction writer.

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Five More Minutes.....

I am a mother of five active, sometimes aggravating children that drive me crazy, provide me with lots of entertainment and remind me constantly about the value of love and family. I am married to my best friend. He makes me laugh every day (usually at myself). I love to eat, run, write, read and then eat again, run again…you get it. I am a children's author, having published four books with MeeGenuis (The Halloween Costume, When Santa Was Small, The Baseball Game, and The Great Adventure Brothers). I have had several pieces of writing published on Adoptive Families, Adoption Today, Brain Child, Scary Mommy, and Ten To Twenty Parenting. I am also a child psychologist, however I honestly think that I may have learned more from my parents and my children than I ever did in any book I read in graduate school. This blog is a place where I can gather my thoughts and my stories and share them with others. My writing is usually about kids and trying to see the world through their eyes, a few about parenting, adoption (one of my children is adopted) and some other random thoughts thrown in… I hope you enjoy them! So grab a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, depending on what time of day it is (or what kind of day it is) and take a few minutes to sit back, relax and read. Please add your comments or opinions, I know you must have something to say, and I would love to hear it. Thanks for stopping by. Anne Cavanaugh-Sawan

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