You’re looking at two of the sweetest people God ever put on this Earth. My maternal grandparents were incredibly loving, kind, generous of spirit and, through no fault of their own, people with a narrow world view.

They were born in the late 1800′s in the Dakota Territory, courted by carriage since cars hadn’t been invented yet, and the most coveted job for a rural kid was getting hired by the railroad. They saw the car enter, adoption of the telephone, the Depression, both World Wars, progress in civil liberties, the landing on the moon and much more. They were almost always in perpetual disarray and befuddlement over the world and searched for any solid footing they could find. They found it in a railroad job of 44 years, their church and small town, their tiny house packed to the rafters with a lifetime of stuff. They took no risks and thus achieved little reward. Their context and world view was shaped and extended by the television and newspaper, but they questioned little.

Oh my how things have changed and no, blogs weren’t around since they both passed in the 1970′s.

Following a link from one blogger to another one who has been absent from the blogging scene for awhile (John Perry Barlow), led me to quite a musing about the state of global consciousness and also to where Barlow’s head is at right now. I share some of the sentiment with him and commented…which led me to thinking about Grandpa and Grandma.

I’ve said it before, the opportunity to be connected to others thoughts, context and point of view (i.e., collective consciousness) through blogs, podcasts, vlogs, alternative news sites and more is unprecedented. That consciousness travels as fast as packets can assemble at their destination. Questioning, fact checking, truth seeking and more is accelerating shaping all of our world views.

It makes me wonder what Grandpa and Grandma would’ve thought if they were alive right now and young enough to handle an internet connected computer. I’m fairly certain that, at a minimum, Grandpa would’ve been connected to other railroad buffs who’d worked on James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railroad.

UPDATE: Wow…just to prove a point that the collective consciousness is real, I had stumbled across a photo and link to a student in North Dakota with the same last name as my grandparents (I did a Google search on the surname to see what was out there on the Web). I emailed her December 7th inquiring as to whether or not there was a family connection. 55 minutes after I posted this blog post, an email arrived! She apologized for its late arrival and that she’d talked with her Dad over the holidays. Turns out her grandpa was most likely a cousin of mine and that her Dad recalls my grandpa’s fathers name was Ole (it was). She and I are cousins though I don’t know what level or how far removed.