It’s unbelievable how our world has changed and I would never have imagined how such a simple word as Spam could have changed in definition.

I certainly ate plenty of Spam when I was young and God only knows how many of my blood vessels became clogged because of it. Under today’s standards, I don’t have a clue as to why those Spam sandwiches which contained mayonnaise didn’t become poisonous because they were in a school locker for hours and those lockers weren’t refrigerated.

Who would have ever believed that an electronic device known as a computer would come along and change our lives even more profoundly than a can of Spam. After all, how could such a simple electronic device not only change how we communicate but even have a huge impact on the language we speak? At my age, I can only hope that it doesn’t influence what I eat because the way it’s going, it is looking like there is nothing safe to eat. I would like to state that peanuts might be the safest thing to munch on but when I was stationed in Alabama the signs on the plants that processed peanuts also contained another word, fertilizer. Do I need say more?

So along comes the computer age with my brain stuck in the Dark Ages and, lo and behold, another version of spam pops up out of nowhere and it’s not edible or, even worse, enjoyable. As I slowly learned the language of computers I learned of something called a spam filter. As I think back I wish that my parents had one on the doors of our house. I find it amazing that Spam is popular in more than 50 countries and yet most people I have talked with don’t like spam on their computers and I don’t blame them one bit. Just about the time I begin to believe I have finally stopped those spam emails from coming to our computer, here come several more.

To the best of my ability, I do my best to unsubscribe from the lists that our email address got leaked to in one way or another but most end up coming back more frequently than I like. Some are even nice enough that I can send an email to their customer service and unless there’s no end to their emails, I just let them know thanks to their trashy emails I will not shop at their stores or order anything from them, ever! There are some that are quite offending to me because I am happily married and don’t need to go looking for a hot date with God only knows who. These days that probably also includes “what,” but I won’t go there. Unfortunately with computers it doesn’t stop there.

If there is anything worse than spam, it’s those annoying pop-up ads that try their best to keep on your computer monitor. Wouldn’t you know it that when we set the tools to block those ads, other things get blocked as well. And if those are annoying, why do so many websites, especially local television stations, keep popping back on the screen when you attempt to leave their sites? Maybe it’s because competition between them is getting tough and maybe it’s a belief that once they get your attention they aren’t going to let you go. Whatever happened to human kindness?

I just have this strange feeling to end this column going back to the original Spam. I used the quotation for this column because it’s the truth. America did ship Spam to the Soviet Union under a lend-and-lease program to feed Soviet troops so I guess the Soviets never forgave us for that. It’s kind of funny that there was an urban legend that Spam was an acronym for scientifically processed animal matter. I think spam on my computer is the same thing after going through those animals.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham believes the only thing worse than spam is the increasing amount of barking dogs in his neighborhood.