Contrast in Catlettsburg

One of my favorite spots along the Ohio River is Virginia Point Park at Kenova, W.Va., where the Big Sandy River empties into the Ohio. Whenever I go to the park, this usually catches my eye as I look across the Big Sandy at Catlettsburg, Ky.

Every time I look at this scene, I think of how the idea of community has changed in my lifetime. The church steeple to me represents people in a geographic area gathering at one spot. It could be a church, a country store, a park or a similar place. Now, kids communicate through their cell phones, and a lot of us adults form communities with people we might never meet face-to-face through the Internet.

But you know, the new reinforces the old, too. There are a lot of people I knew once who have moved away, and I can keep in touch with them thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook. So it's not so much of an old vs. new as you might think.