Today I'm 67 years old. Closing in on 70. The 60s never seems that old to me but 70 does. Maybe I'll change my mind if I get there!
I've been thinking about all the changes my Mamaw saw and how that's different from what I've seen. She lived the longest of my grandparents. The whole world changed in amazing ways for her. From horses to automobiles to planes to spacecrafts. She walked down a country road to the store and lived to see men walking on the moon. She lived through the Korean War, both world wars, and Vietnam, and all the smaller fights around the globe. She buried a son killed in WWII and a 13 year old daughter who died from heart disease.
She was born into a country where women couldn't vote. Where people of color couldn't eat and drink where white people did or go to the same schools. Where they were hung without trial for looking at a white woman and sometimes for no reason at all, not that that's a reason, but sometimes no one even tried to think of an inexcusable excuse.
She had no contact with Arabs, Hispanics, Muslims, Hindus, Asians. If she knew any LGBT people, she wouldn't have known it because they kept it hidden. She didn't know many people that weren't Baptists and even then, if she did, they were likely to be Methodists.
She lived before telephones and television. She never learned to drive. She worked outside the home when I was a kid and had been a farmer's wife before that. But mostly she took care of our family, cooking and taking care of things at home.
She saw the world change in more ways than I ever will. We had all hoped we would soon be living as the Jetsons did, but it seems we've made slower progress than in the time of my grandmother. Our biggest change is the Internet. It's an encyclopedia at our fingertips and a way of instant communication with our family and friends and even those we would never meet otherwise. It inspires revolutions, for good or bad, and it educates us on what goes on around the world. It teaches us and shows us how to repair plumbing leaks or frame a wall.
We have an international space station but it doesn't seem like we've moved as fast as we thought we would once we walked on the moon. We never went back and there's no space travel for humans easily available. We send satellites up for communications and spying but we've not managed to use that avenue for weather control or harnessing energy.
We still rely on fossil fuel for energy, and renewables are in the baby stage and much of that in other countries, not ours. We've made no progress controlling flooding and droughts. We still have epidemics in diseases that could have been eradicated years ago if people would stop their mistrust of science and if countries would fund it. We've made some progress in recycling what we use but we still toss out unheard of amounts of trash and building materials. And in some countries people are still digging through dump sites to find something to eat.
Though we've come a long way in accepting people that are different from us, many people want us to go backwards. Some even calling for our country to break up, as if our country didn't learn a lesson in heartache and horror from that last civil war. I see a lot repeating from the 1960s when I was young. Riots, blaming, hating and mistrusting on all sides those that are different, even trying to pass a slew of unconstitutional laws to make us all believe the same. The open-mindedness that people fought so hard to achieve, even dying for, is being pushed back against.
And a see a lot of cries for isolationism. We can no longer follow that path. That's one thing the airplanes, satellites, and internet ended. Our world is smaller and what we do in one place affects all of us. Just like we get the smoke from the rainforest burning in South America, we can get something worse from a tiny nation (or big nation, even our nation, as we aren't immune to power hunger) with a crazy leader and nuclear capability. We're still seeing what can be done by a small group of people with explosive vests or assault rifles. What someone just as crazy can do with a nuclear weapon is unbearable to think of.
A woman I don't know told me a few years back that her only concern was that she didn't want the world to change. Well, the world's gonna change. How it changes is the only control we have. We can go backwards or forwards. While there are some things I don't want to lose, like porch swings and cheese toast, we have so much room for improvement, so much good that can come out of our advanced knowledge. We've got to move forward in our education and not slow down and for that we need it to be a priority and it needs to be funded.
I hope my grandchildren and their generation aren't content to let things carry on as they are, and certainly I hope they don't want to go backwards. I hope they accomplish what we couldn't. I see some of my generation and the generation under us raising their children to look backwards and not forwards. But I have hope that most of them don't and that among those who are raised that way, many will think for themselves and look ahead.
Just some musings on my 67th birthday. Looking out my window, it's a wonderful world and looks not that much different than it would have looked 50 or 60 years ago. But outside my view I want it to move forward. And move forward at the speed it did for my Mamaw, and all in good ways. I know some people want things to stay the same for their grandkids, and as far as having clean rivers and wild places, I do too. But on other fronts, I'm like most parents and grandparents and I want it to be better.
"It's your world now
My race is run
I'm moving on
Like the setting sun
No sad goodbyes
No tears allowed
You'll be alright
It's your world now.
It's your world now
Use well your time
Be part of something good
Leave something good behind."
~The Eagles
