Memorial Day on LinkedIn

I now live in a rather remote part of Belize, Central America, which itself is incredibly remote.  As a recent American ex-pat I am still subject to the rhythms of American life and habits.  

Memorial Day isn’t a holiday here of course, but thanks to outages in cable Internet services, it might as well be.

  

I live in Placencia, which is a sliver of a peninsula at the bottom of the country; with the Caribbean a few feet away facing east, and its lagoon, even fewer feet away where the sun sets in the west.  I’m in a kind of jungle, with Cocoplum trees, palms, and orchids growing all over them, and a mango tree behind my apartment that has just produced a wheelbarrow full of fresh fruit.

I’ve managed to secure a fairly speedy cable Internet connection however it is only speedy if someone hasn’t sliced through the fiber optic cable that is buried next to our only paved road; the one that runs up and down the peninsula. 

  

Even when the fiber optic cable is in working condition, frequent power outages black out the whole mess; and that can be because of some car crash on a pole here on the peninsula, or because the Mexicans have pulled the plug on the entire country of Belize due some billing problem or Saturday night whoopee party.

When both the local cable company and electricity are working at the same time, which is like the planets organizing in a straight line, I can binge on a gumball machine of television offerings and then do more or less the same online.

The bridge that put me over the edge.

Having endured either or both services out of sync for the past few days, I was able to get in a Memorial Day Weekend war movie on the AMC channel last night (A Bridge Too Far, and boy was it. I passed out.) and managed to get into the Internet (after repeated tries) this morning.

Opening the Microsoft Edge browser was a bit of an eye-opener, since it seems to bring back all the sites and links that I had previously opened prior to the last blackout.  It turns out I had plenty up there.

I dove into my email first, dispatching emails from various outfits like Discount Bubble Wrap, Surgical Compression Stockings, and Zippo.   Then, I knocked off anything with the subject: “We Want You Back”.  And after that, the complete panoply of political stuff.   I was left with a couple of old emails from Eastern Airlines.

Turning my focus to the jam-packed line-up of sites I had previously opened, I noted that LinkedIn was up there.  

I’ve used LinkedIn for years to connect to various professional people, find a job here or there, put myself on its map.  Looking at the little icon I vaguely remember trying to change my photo, which was impossible at the time, so I just left it.  Whether or not that was due to one of our Belizean telecom or electrical issues or LinkedIn’s system, it didn’t matter.  I just went on to something else.

But this morning, Memorial Day, I clicked on the site and was suddenly presented with pictures and names of nearly everyone I have ever or may have encountered in my entire life. This was Ultimate Freaky Memory Lane consisting of screens and screens of names, faces, titles, companies and bio dreck.  It was like a demented animated yearbook that scrolled on and on, page after page, and included business people, my current and former friends, my ex-wife's friends, my children's friends, and a whole army of people I haven't ever invited to link to or even know.

Or me?

Remember me?

This wasn’t a dump of my contacts on LinkedIn.   This was worse: an entire Notre Dame Stadium full of people I forgot, never knew, don’t have or care to have a working or personal relationship with; ex-girlfriends; people who totally messed-up my life; the cold-hearted and the cruel.   

A pop-up memorial to people and places I have now moved well beyond.

No.

[Brief foray into the Petroleum Industry]

I was drawn into going through the entire manifest and try to remember who wasn’t indifferent, cold-hearted, or cruel; who was nice; who was helpful and kind.   Not a big yield of the latter I’m afraid.

The problem was trying to remember.   In some cases, I recognized names but had never seen faces.  Or I vaguely remember some kind of brief encounter or meeting.   And in a lot of cases, who is this person?

Hmm. I'm thinking Multi-Level-Marketing Ponzi guy.

I guess LinkedIn just pulls up stuff from my contact lists or emails, shredded job rejections and love letters, various bills and torn business cards, then it matches them to whatever it can dig up.   Clever. 

Sinister.

It was kind of painful and took a bit of time.   Great, just what I need, a memory test on Memorial Day!

But -- and here’s the rub -- I did find a few really smart, reliable, and genuinely good people in there that I remember in work and personal life.   Some people I should reconnect with, others I should connect with.   As with the commandos who saved bridges in 1944 in Europe, I've tried not to burn too many myself.

I don't need thousands of LinkedIn contacts. A few good friends will do.

In the spirit of the holiday, I’m not in a place where today I can pay tribute to the American fallen by visiting a grave or watching a parade, but they are in my thoughts.

American flag

I also won’t barbecue because it’s the dry season in Belize and if one of the parched palmettos gets hit by a flying spark, the whole joint goes up in flames.

 

I’ll settle for a salad and another war movie.

If the planets are aligned.