This isn't Facebook...
In response to my Jan 18th letter to the NarbonneHS.Org Advisory Board members asking for tips on how to improve this website, Scott Mann responded with...
"Unfortunately, Facebook is now out there with a broader audience than originated with high school classmates. People can eavesdrop on friends of friends much easier that listening to the next table at Starbucks. It's like showing a brag book or home movies of vacations. People are on Facebook constantly if it's only to publically acknowledge they're still in the click. It's like a high school reunion on a daily basis, with an emphasis on high school and without spell check."
So I lamented the fact that this website can't compete with Facebook, and Elsie Newman added:
"I LOVE that [NarbonneHS.Org] isn't like Facebook - I can't stand it. I always felt like people are looking at my friends, and me looking at other people's friends is like looking at their laundry basket - none of my business and TMI."
I've received other emails with similar sentiments. So as long as there are a few Gauchos out there that still appreciate what this website has to offer, then I will keep it running.
Your dedicated web developer, Cassi (McKenzie) Bassolino
As one who remembers the origins of the Narbonne website and your mission, I believe that you have more than succeeded.
Once upon a time, after one of our enchanted 67’ reunions, you invited some of us to your home to extend the magic and fun. We all had a great time. I can’t remember if was during or at the end of the party, that we had discovered that one of us was dying of ALS. He had no remorse or self pity, and was reveling in your party. What a great way to remember him. We didn’t want that to be the last time we saw him; another larger party was conceived to send him off with all of his family, friends and teachers around him.
You created the Narbonne Historical Society website shortly after Jim’s last party, to document, inform, and provide a free meeting place for Narbonne alumni, unlike the “new pay for view” Classmates.com, the only game in town.
Your site not only announces events, finds lost friends, provides a forum to “catch up “or reminisce, but it more important, memorializes those that are gone. If indeed, what you put on the internet is available to the world and never goes away; our friends will be remembered here forever.
Since the inception of the website membership has grown geometrically, and as with any good idea, other Narbonne sites have popped up.
I like to think of The Narbonne Historical Society as “our” personal website, created for all the right reasons.