I love my job. Mostly!
However, I am of the old school. And seriously, we’re talking “old school” here. I started out as a reporter using a typewriter to pound out my stories and I spent hours in the darkroom developing film. Each time I was in there, I hoped and prayed my pictures would turn out well enough to pass the garbage can test. After I passed that test, I was given the okay by my very mean editor (I had many…they were all mean, actually, especially on deadline day) to paste said picture onto a broadsheet page using a light table.
How things have changed.
Now we have computers and programs and we talk to each other through messenger.
Now my trusty Pentax 1000 sits dusty and unused on a shelf in my bedroom.
Part of my job as an editor of a small rural paper is to post something daily on Facebook. What that something is could be a picture, a news flash or a bit of trivia that may or may not inspire someone to “like” the post.
The more “likes” you get, the better.
The trouble with using Facebook as part of my daily “work” routine is that I find myself mindlessly scrolling through other meaningless messages which really have nothing to do with my job and should have the caption, “one more way to waste one’s time.”
The other day in a mindless time wasting marathon, I came across a post that I found rather humorous. However, I had a notion in the back of my head where such notions reside, that some others might not see the humour in this particular post.
I decided to share it with my husband only in a private message. Unfortunately, because my brain waves did not wave at the appropriate time, I shared the thing with all my friends who live in the same Facebook world as me.
Once again I had a sneaking notion this was not a good thing.
I was right.
It didn’t take long before replies came filtering back. One such reply was from a teenage niece whom I love dearly, but saw fit to take me to task over the post.
She said she was sorry for expressing herself on my wall, but freedom of speech was really one of the few freedoms Canadians had left.
Her response made me ponder such things as rights and freedoms.
As I said before I come from the old school of learning and I’m probably missing something.
But I do feel we as Canadians are extremely fortunate and, at the risk of sounding a bit like a Pollyanna, I think we enjoy many rights we probably, in our ignorance, take for granted.
Mind you, I’m not talking about traffic circles here. Traffic circles have their own code of ethics as far as rights go. Speaking of Facebook, I recently read a post from the City of Red Deer on how to enter a traffic circle.
I’m still confused.
Where there is a huge line of traffic on Hwy. 20 and I’m on Lakeshore Drive, waiting to get in, I’m still not sure when I have the right to do so. And who am I to argue with a honkin’ big truck?
Anyway, today is one of those beautiful days that you wish you could get your genie (if you had one) to bring out of his lamp in February when the world is encased in snow and ice and more is in the forecast.
And I’m grateful for this beautiful day etched in God’s own colouring book, all warm and mellow and filled with promise. And I’m also grateful I have the freedom to write this column.
And I’m grateful my readers have the freedom to read it.
Or not!
Treena Mielke is the editor of the Rimbey Review and writes a regular column for The Pipestone Flyer.