Right now there’s a lot of buzz going on about “The Social Network,” the new film about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and how “his” invention changed the world. Undoubtedly this is true, but I am the only Mark that can tell you about a social networking system that was launched in 1967. This was long before Facebook. Hell, Zuckerberg wasn’t even born until 1984. At my middle school, (it was called Jr. High School back then) Arnold Memorial School, in Cleveland, Tennessee, in the early Pleistocene era, there was a social networking system we referred to as “Slam Books.” These student-generated tomes were the bane of our teachers’ daily lives. A slam book was simply a spiral bound notebook. Inside, an entire page (sometimes two) was devoted to one student. At the top of the page was written the student’s name. The book was passed around from student to student and many wrote comments on the pages. Back in those days, most students were actually concerned that a fellow classmate might have their feelings hurt or be treated cruelly, so most comments were positive. But occasionally, there were random comments that indicated a student’s “dark side,” such as “not as goody-goody as she seems,” or “he cheats at intramural basketball.” No comments were signed, forcing readers to become amateur graphologists, poring over each letter to determine who wrote it. Just an important as having glowing comments on your own Slam Book page was finding a unique ink color to use when you signed the Slam Book. I had a Sheaffer fountain pen that used ink cartridges. I looked far and wide to find cartridges with Peacock Blue ink. I finally found the distinctive color at Cooper’s Bookstore on the town square. It would be so much fun to read those pages now.