By DOLLY VISCARDI
Special to the Herald Times
The sunny weather throughout these summer months results in so many folks continuing to get together. Catching up on the all the news is the good side effect, the reactivation of the rumor mill is not. The most recent warnings of the annual increased rattlesnake activity with the warmer weather is a reminder of the need to watch where we are going to avoid stepping on these ever-present summer sun-lovers. The snakes come out from hibernation to find food or bask in the sun. Most of us are more than familiar with this natural feature of our part of the state and the annual warnings come and go as we go about our daily lives. No one says much about an increase in another dangerous natural occurrence — the growth of the gossip grapevine.
As the rumor mill continues to slither its way unnoticed through almost every public gathering, it takes on a more lethal presence. Simply bringing up the good news with the bad becomes the seed bed for the fast-growing conversational underbrush. The well-used phrases, “Somebody said,” “I heard,” or “I was told” have been wafting through the air at most public events. Whether these get-togethers produce all sorts of casual, light mentions of people that one may not have seen for a long time, the lack of factual information that is brought up for community consumption remains sparse. Fanning the flames of social wildfires by continuing to add more details to the brief facts of someone’s experience doesn’t bode well for anyone, not the community members who currently reside here, or their longtime friends and family who moved away. The strength of these social wildfires has always been almost impossible to fight. The sparks and smoldering ashes spread far and wide, never reaching 100% containment.
Medical professionals of every specialty are reporting that even their most seriously ill patients exhibit this same-need to-know behavior. It leads to the development of a different kind of negative social interaction and should be considered another kind of “crowd-sourcing.” This is often from their desperation to help. Family and friends may find themselves searching the worldwide web to find out as much as they can before they or their families can make a serious life-changing decision. Our shared access to social media allows public access to websites providing both misinformation and factual information to appear on our screen in a flash. The damage done when someone has trouble discerning the difference between the two recalls the original smalltown way to communicate: the gossip grapevine.
The fast and furious spread of any news at all becomes devastating to all. While small communities like Meeker are known to pull together in times of trouble, they eventually become recognized for their continued support of a totally different type of social interaction. If someone starts a conversation with any of the same old phrases that will only lead to creating more difficulties, each of us has the ability to correct our own need-to-know tendencies. Maybe this will lead to another annual tradition: summer resolutions.
By DOLLY VISCARDI
Special to the Herald Times
