In March of 1994, I “telnetted” from a job at a huge state university with others like me. It seemed at that point the only people chatting were academics, students, and those at the forefront of the whole computer movement.
The crazy thing is, I know next to nothing about computer technology! I am a 1984 high school graduate and took a class called “Introduction to Computers” during my very last semester in high school. I was also able to skate through college back in those days and garner a Bachelor of Science degree in English with one simple computer class.
So, I was thrust into the workforce with very little computer knowledge save constructing a paper in WordPerfect.
When I took a position as a secretary within the agricultural publishing unit of the university, I discovered the beginnings of the wonderful world that became the Internet. Back in “those days,” the screen was black with a little blinking arrow with the word “telnet” beside it. I am sure there are those out there who were part of this group of people who will recall this and could describe it much better than me! As I said, I do not live and function within the language of “computer-speak.”
At this prompting, the “telnet” prompt, you could launch yourself into spontaneous conversations with people all around the world. It seemed mainly at that time to be Americans and Britons, and we all seemed equal parts amazed and equal parts bravado.
Has anyone ever heard of Foothills? I believe it is (arguably?) the oldest “chat site” on the Web. I was a charter member. I have to be! Telnetting would take me to this rudimentary site and I met all kinds of people with monikers like Watch420, Squirl, and Retread. It was also considered kinda cool back then if everyone randomly capitalized their nickname letters, such as with BaByGiRl.
My own moniker was Jewel. I have visited Foothills in years since and there is a Jewel on there but it’s not me. I abandoned the web chatting by fall of 1995 and I did it for a reason.
I had met someone.
He was nine years younger than me and a college student in northern Montana. We fell so hard for one another that it became an all-consuming passionate love affair. It took mere months for us to begin flying to one another on a regular basis and we became experts in finding the good fares.
Our first meeting was me flying to him. Amazingly, as if it were written in the stars, as I stepped off into the airport, I met and locked eyes immediately with the one man who was there for me in a crowded waiting area. We were so in love it was pathetic! I realize my story here could be a snoozefest for anyone quite a bit younger than me. At the time ... it seemed incredibly extreme, outrageous in its risk, exhilarating in the very nature that I had met him on the computer, which at that time had no fancy fonts or pictures or even much color.
After two years of the flying, he took a great-paying job with a traveling welding crew, the kind of crew who comes into a town for special jobs that could last one week, one month, or a year. One example was a fairly long-term job he had in western Nebraska fixing a sugar plant’s huge silo. It had suffered an enormous and devastating explosion and my man’s crew was brought in to fix it.
I left my job, my nice fulltime job, at the university, to be with him. We did great together for a fairly long time, considered marriage more than once, and saw a lot of this beautiful country together.
The relationship finally ended in late 1997. Not long after, I found out I was pregnant! I now have a beautiful eleven-year-old daughter who looks quite a bit like her father. He is wonderful about her and has always been there financially for her if not for day-to-day living. We both returned to our respective regions of the country and seemed to fade back into our former lives as if the dream world we had created through the computer had never even happened.
