Why I Play Frontierville

Who would have thought I would get hooked on a Facebook game when there is so much more important work to be done, like saving the planet and countering the Fox Propaganda Machine?

Alas, I am a Frontierville addict. I play daily and waste more time than I care to admit clobbering groundhogs, scaring bears and harvesting eggplant.

I’ll lay the blame on my 28-year-old comedienne daughter, Alexis, who left Philadelphia six months ago and moved in with us to try her hand breaking into the Big Time Comedy Scene in Los Angeles.

Alexis caught me more than once playing Bejeweled Blitz, another Facebook game that is less addicting than Frontierville, but a time-waster nevertheless.

“Don’t be embarrassed Mom,” was her reassuring counsel. “I play Facebook games too.” Including Frontierville. And the rest is history.

So what’s the appeal of that silly game?

For me it harkens back to a time when we as a people in this United States of America were more collaborative than competitive. We helped our friends and neighbors. We were there for them in a pinch.

Barn raisings and quilting bees were routine. If a hungry neighbor needed a chicken to eat during the Great Depression, we looked the other way when she stole one from our coop. We might have been down to our last loaf of bread, but when someone needier than us came along, we gave him the center, not the heel. We had no money and couldn’t buy goods or services, so we bartered.

I don’t think politics or religion really mattered to a homesteader desperate to get his crops harvested before the winter ice storms. Any philosophical differences were put aside until the firewood was chopped, the crops were stored and the animals fed.

And so it is with Frontierville. I have many new friends who have become my neighbors just to play the silly game, and these “strangers” are some of the most incredible people I’ve ever meet.

My new friends Rod, Crystal, Nicole, Jill, Kelly and Michelle would give you the shirts off their backs in virtual reality.

And I suspect they would do the same in the Real World when the shit hits the fan.

I’m keeping them close, along with my old friends.