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A Sweet, Salty Facebook Tale

I’ve never really been a social network supporter.

It’s all seemed kind of silly to me, really. Just thinking about the idea of MySpace and Facebook took up more time than I wanted to spend. My philosophy has always been pretty straight-forward: Why waste my life reading notes from someone on the other side of the country when I can sit in the same room with my TV and share deep and meaningful moments with a bag of something salty and fattening?

However, I just spotted a story that gave me pause. According to a mirror.co.uk article, a woman named Frances had spent her whole life looking for her estranged dad. Then out of the blue, while researching her family tree, a friend discovered that the 51 year-old Frances had a previously unknown teenage half sister. And wouldn’t you know it, Frances spotted this newly discovered sibling’s name on Facebook and decided to send her a message.

“This will be a bit of a shock,” Frances wrote. “But I think I’m your sister.”

The half sis was equally blown away and wrote back: “Do you want to talk to my dad? He’s sitting right next to me.”

After picking up her teeth (I’m not sure she actually dropped them, but wouldn’t you?), Frances started chatting with her dad on Facebook and, that weekend, they met each other again after 48 years apart.

OK, so maybe this social network stuff can have some purpose. I’m not making any promises, but I might rethink my grumpy old ways.

But I’m still holding out for something salty and fattening.

Bob Hoose

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.