CATCHING DAD WITH SATELLITE BONES AND YOUTUBE GOOGLES

Dear Dad:

I always think of you -- long-gone for the last 34 years -- whenever I hear techno-popology that would now beggar your imagination, had you lived to hear it. Take this morning's headline:

"GOOGLE BUYS YOUTUBE FOR 1.5 BILLION"

Sorry, Dad, but that one probably makes you glad you left early.

I also found a clear image this morning of my Mazda pickup truck, taken from space. Trust me, I wasn't looking for it, Pop, but most of my best discoveries happen along like this, like ketchup on a hot dog.

Here's a satellite photo, and there's our street, the house on the corner. Yep, there's my white 4-wheeled Monster herself. I can't quite make out the dents in the rear quarter-panel, but another six months in surveillance discipline will probably fine tune-in even that.

So, Dad, no more nude gardening, unless I want the world to know how long's the row I hoe. (And, attention, terrorists: If you're going to blow up something, start with my truck. You couldn't make it run any worse.)

Can you understand how I have access to satellite photos, or what "Google" means as a noun, or how it's possible to "Google" someone as a verb, or whatinheck a "YouTube" is?

When you left the planet there was no "internet," and I'd first have to explain that these are entities and functions utilized by our home computers, and the only significant "Windows" you'd hail are the ones you replaced after my foul tip softballs.

Down here, there's an Alaskan senator whose name I'll spare you, who describes the internet as "a bunch of tubes." Let's just leave it at that, Dad. Any more info and I'd only completely confound you. This fella also is responsible for building a "bridge to nowhere," so take that for what it's worth.

Let's just say that Google bought YouTube for big bucks, and the entire planet can now see me in my Dalmatian pajama bottoms as I reveal the final solution for telephone disturbances, just by clicking HERE.

Don't think less of me for this. Set against the other videos on YouTube, my actions are funnier than most, tamer than others. As usual, just as it was when my errant softballs broke the kitchen panes, I have no excuse, and sister Sue made me do it (still lame, but a friendly retreat).

In scope & practice, Dad, the world as you knew it is gone with the Windows -- from a big blue marble to a melting pinball -- and we're the worse for it. The charm of distance is gone.

I can make a movie with my phone and send it instantly to a guy in Timbuktu. I can pay all my bills without ever using a stamp. I can take "virtual reality" tours of great libraries and museums, and descend into the Grand Canyon without leaving my chair.

Say----

I'll bet if I can see our house and my beaten-up truck from an outer space camera, that I can see your grave.

Well, I'll be.

There you are. A bit fuzzy & faint, but there's the cemetery entrance, the scrub pines, and the corner lot where, if I squint, I can just make out the artificial flowers on your headstone (not my idea). Over there lies your sister, Shirley, and brother-in-law, Walter. Edge up a bit, and there's your best friend, Mac. Good company you're keeping.

So, let's sum up:

I'm sitting at home on earth looking at your body's final resting place from a picture taken two hundred miles up, (your spiritual neck of the woods) while some Parisian office temp worker who called in sick today may well be watching me strut around in my dog jammies.

But, I'd trade it all right now for one good game of catch with you.

Hey – we could film it, send it to YouTube, and the whole world could Google us!

Dad?

DAD?

Copyright 2006 by B. Elwin Sherman. All rights reserved.