I wasn’t there for the assassination of Martin Luther King, the protests against the Vietnam War or the tragedy of the Kent State shooting.

A symptom of breaking down and finally buying a functionable smartphone is getting deluged with memes from friends.

I remember the first time I heard about Facebook. A girl in my college class told me it was “kind of neat” and I should check it out. She described it to me this way: You create an online profile that says you like all sorts of eclectic bands and try to put up pictures that only make you look good.

I don’t have the type of memory that allows me to keep track of all the books I’ve read and what happens in them, but I do recall one of the first stories to leave an impact on me.