I told a young friend I had posted a picture of her on Facebook, and she seemed surprised.

“I didn’t know you were that high-tech,” she said.

If being high-tech means I know how to log onto a computer and call up the Internet, I’m high-tech. But I’m still not sure what 4-G means, much less the difference between an IPod and an IPad. And I’ve never been guilty of texting, whether on or off the highway. When I remember, I tuck the family cell phone (Miss Peggy and I share one) into my shirt pocket before going for a drive or a walk. Miss Peggy insists that I take it for a drive in case she thinks of something I need to pick up at Bi-Lo. She encourages me to carry it on my walks just in case I pass out and need assistance. I suppose it might be of marginal help in such an emergency, though I can barely use it while conscious, much less while unconscious.

I still haven’t learned to use my telephone to take photographs (I have a dandy digital camera for that) or to locate the closest Walmart (the GPS in my glove pocket will do that for me, if I can remember which buttons to push) or to check my e-mail (a guy needs to be out of touch once in a while).

But I’m gradually learning the ropes on Facebook, and I’m probably driving my friends nuts with the photos I post. The social network serves as a back-up photo album in which I have parked photos of three generations of offspring, plus a slew of photos of Miss Peggy from the age of 9 months to the age of 70. I’ve even posted photos of  the old cars I’ve known, many of which I have driven. And there are old shots taken behind the Iron Curtain when there was an Iron Curtain, and in China when China was still recovering from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. I have photos of me on the Great Wall, in Red Square, and at the Berlin Wall.

I joined Facebook at the invitation of a granddaughter, and I figured it would be a handy way to keep up with my progeny, who are not that good at telephoning Gramps to see how he’s doing. I now have 142 “friends,” most of whom are related to me by blood or faith, or whom I have known  for a while and so I won’t feel embarrassed about revealing intimate details of my life. My cousin Tom in Clover, S.C. has 1,829 friends, but Tom used to be a politician.

Facebook gives me a feeling of being plugged in without being roped in. Every day I can log on and see the latest photos of the kids and keep up with their activities. I sometimes learn more than I want to know and see language I’d rather not see, but then old eyes are shocked much more readily than younger ones.

Today I saw a photo of a handsome grown grandson who is pursuing an acting career on the West Coast, and he was standing beside a gorgeous blonde whom he didn’t feel the need to identify. 

Cousin Tom keeps us entertained with photos purportedly taken at Walmart. The one this morning was taken from the rear of a hefty woman wearing pink pantyhose, white shorts and a sports bra that revealed tattoos described by one of Tom’s friends as “an ice cream cone in a windstorm.”

Tom’s caption: “I wore it because they won’t let you shop naked.”

Tom often posts editorial comments, like the one this morning: “Charlie Sheen snorted enough coke to kill two and a half men.” I don’t challenge Tom when it comes to entertainment or politics.

Other postings are more mundane:

“I went 2 see James Stewart last week.” I don’t know whether James Stewart is the actor or somebody else with that  name, and didn’t bother to inquire. Jimmy Stewart has been dead since 1997, but his movies live on.

“Watching the first Superman movie with Dev. He’s never seen it.”

I’ve known Superman for about 70 years, and figured he must have starred in some movies during the ’40s, but the Internet’s archives seem to go back no farther than 1978. When I pressed for more information on the Man of Steel’s history, I found that, aside from the comic books, he appeared only on radio and in animated cartoons until 1948, when he broke into television. So I suppose Dev was watching the first Superman movie.

“Had a blast at Merry Widows and Joe Cain parade. Caught tons of beads and got sunburned.”

A former colleague, now in Florida, was on a visit to Mobile, for Mardi Gras. I could picture the gaudy parades snaking down Government Street, and I remembered the times when I tried to finish my work before 5 p.m. so I could get out of downtown before my escape route was blocked.

I confine my Internet meanderings to my staid old desktop, and I refuse to learn how to text from a cell phone. When I’m alone in my car, I don’t even want the radio or CD playing. A guy needs time to commune with his own thoughts.

But occasionally when I’m cooped up in my office, I’ll post a “status” on Facebook, just to let my 142 friends know I’m still alive.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625 or  at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.