Facebook follies skate on thin ice

Luther, who died before Facebook was born, also taught me the importance of Dagwood sandwiches made the Danish way using only one slice of bread.

Better for the figure, you know.

Luther also thought that the marble game Aggravation was more important than the pro football Super Bowl. What’s more, he had Burma Shave-type signs all along the quarter-mile driveway to his sheep ranch, which impressed great-nephews and good-to-middlin’ nieces to no end.

The signs read something like this:

Every nephew/Now can eat/Every night/A midnight feast ... Burma Shave.

No, we did not put shaving cream on the peach pie. But I digress.

What brings this to mind was running into a famished checkout person at the grocery store. I felt bad. She had skipped breakfast and was now processing my fruits and vegetables while trying to reach her 1 p.m. lunch break.

While ringing up my bag of Cutie Clementine oranges, she admitted to suffering migraines, which are to headaches what the Titanic is to a rowboat.

She may not yet be within shouting distance of the adult-onset diabetes cliff. Still, skipping meals is not good. It might even bring on a migraine.

The grocery store encounter also made me think of a friend on Facebook. Like so many other people in America, David is facing the challenges of adult-onset diabetes. A champion barbecuer, he is having to learn how to eat tasty low-glycemic foods like tofu and broccoli.

The glycemic index rates foods and beverages. It tells us the amount of free sugar they dump into the system, making blood sugar go up and down like a Dollywood rollercoaster.

A positive part of Facebook, which is used by about one in nine people around the world, is giving encouragement during health crises.

Facebook, it seems, is more than just a way for mayors to stir up controversy.

If every word I wrote on Facebook was available to a wide audience, I’d have to spend most of my waking hours apologizing --- if I was the apologizing type. I’d apologize for what I wrote about robber barons, the prohibition of alcohol, perfectionists and Christopher Columbus discovering Ohio.

On second thought, maybe we should let people on Facebook speak their minds, tell the brutally honest truth about what they really think. Then we can have a midnight snack. Pie and shaving cream, anyone? 

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