Each day on Word Press there is a prompt for writers. I usually have my own ideas but I wanted to respond to this prompt today. As a baby boomer, I’ve been blessed to experience many historical events. In addition to events, I’ve witnessed ways of life that have disappeared and I’ve experienced wonders the likes of which I never imagined.
I could jot a list here. Nice but not meaningful. I began kindergarten in September 1963, in Burlington, VT. Not long after the school year began we stood in line to receive a sugar cube nestled in one of those white paper pill cups. The sugar cube contained a vaccine destined to eradicate polio. Just that summer I became very ill while staying at my grandparent’s camp. My fever was high and I was ill enough that I was brought into a nearby city to be examined. It was Coxsackie Virus. My parents were grateful it wasn’t polio as they’d feared.
On July 20, 1969, I was so excited that my usual bedtime was suspended. We went to our next door neighbor’s house to watch the moon landing. They had a color tv though much of the footage was in black and white anyway. Looking at the moon took on a new meaning after that night. I didn’t understand the importance of racing into space back then and, honestly, I still don’t.
Also jammed into the decade of the 1960s was a tremendous amount of death. Vietnam, Kent State, JFK, MLK, RFK, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers. Was it all worth it? Not judging by today’s society. We lost 58,220 young men and women during Vietnam alone. I became a news junkie during this time period. Watergate occurred and all of the hearings related to it. I was back in Burlington visiting friends as “Tricky Dick” took his last ride on Marine One, still flashing his peace signs. Two points on your average if a voice in your head just said, “I am not a crook.”
Some wonderful stuff I experienced was new types of television programming like “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” “All in the Family,” “Monty Python’s Flying Circus (there’s a penguin on the telly),” “The Fugitive (in re-runs).” So many more wonderful and groundbreaking shows.
The AIDS epidemic captured most everyone’s attention. There is still no cure but the diagnosis is no longer an automatic death sentence. So many families were affected by the loss of friends and loved ones, mine included. My lone sibling is forever 40 in my memory.
There have been phenomenal medical advancements. I’ve certainly benefitted from several.
9/11. I will never, ever forget watching the first tower fall as a classroom of students behind me kept right on chit-chatting like we were watching a movie. Another teacher and I held hands over our mouths in shock and horror. I was speechless.
The silence of the night sky on 9/11 as all flights were grounded.
The Greatest Generation. What they did to preserve our futures was incredible. We will never see the likes of them again.
I’m not even going to tackle COVID and the current US political situation. I’m all too aware of the amount of graft, corruption, and propaganda that folks are willing to believe so that a small percentage can prosper while a high percentage of our fellow citizens struggle to make ends meet, put healthy food on the table, and have basic health care.
I look forward to the historical event that heralds the end to our current nightmare and ensures Democracy will live forever in the US.
“We shall overcome,/We shall overcome,/We shall overcome, some day.” Song originates from “I’ll Overcome Someday,” by Charles Albert Tindley (1901). First symbolic of the Labor Movement before becoming representative of the Civil Rights Movement.
Stories Are For Eternity 