Facebook group celebrates Pincher Creek memories

photo courtesy of Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village

Toni Lucas

This past week Facebook (FB) had a Pincher Creek meme appear based on memories. I first saw something similar through a friend of mine, Lori. Her FB feed suddenly had a bunch of things about when she was growing up in Lethbridge. I found these to be funny, sweet, nostalgic, and only vaguely related to my life, as I grew up in Pincher Creek. I did find that many of the posts about winter journeys to school, games and pastimes were comfortably similar enough to what I actually experienced that it made me smile. Because she and I are similar in age, some of our experiences coincided based on that as well.

Then I came home one evening and found many messages in my FB feedrelating to a new group. "You grew up in Pincher Creek if you remember...", started by Koreen VanDyk on Monday August 15. It is the one week anniversary of this group today, and it is going strong. This group has dredged up the memories of the individuals participating across all age ranges. With close to 800 posts and 395 people in this group, it spread like a grass fire. There are photos that date to the horse and buggy era, to ones that may have been taken this week. All manner of shared experiences have been explored. Some of the more heavily visited themes? Places to gather, eat and talk are hot topics. What made us happy, or scared. Changes in the landscape, businesses and buildings. Events that affected our lives. The experiences, people and personalities that shaped the people that we became later in life.
One of the changes that has barely been mentioned is how social media itself is a new twist on an old theme. In many ways this new group is acting like the places that we are discussing. It is the new watering hole, a place where people make connections. Since we first gathered in caves and burned fire to keep away the darkness and what moved through it, we have made communities. We look to share our experiences and the action of relating those those stories can create experiences of their own.

Now a generation is growing up that have had cell phones, computers, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia as part of their day-to-day lives. These are all common easily accessible things that did not

exist 20 years ago. My parents grew up in a time when we had not yet conquered the pull of gravity and left this planet, and not every household had a telephone. This generation is going through new discoveries and breakthroughs constantly. They will someday look back on the time when they grew up here, and share the times that stand out in their memory with their friends, family and children. I look back at how much change we have experienced as a culture, and in this town, during my lifetime. I wonder what the younger generation here is experiencing, and what they will face in the future. How will it shape them?

Will this group still be sharing their memories as frequently in a week or a year? I don't know, but it is fun to be part of it right now.

Are you on Facebook? Join "You grew up in Pincher Creek if you remember..." and share your memories. You can share them here at the Voice too.

Check out our own FB page "Pincher Creek Voice" for current news updates