 Not Much has happened since June 11, 1979 By Glen Willard |
It was only 25 years ago. A long time to some, not so long for others. When you're young time passes a lot slower. At least I've noticed that. In fact it seems to accelerate. Like a roller coaster life seems. Remember at the fairgrounds... how unhurriedly the coaster rises. It seems to climb ever so slowly. And the anticipation... the crest... the top ever so far away. Then finally the top, for an ever so... later on it seems at least... time before the descent. Then the speed increases... ever faster... downward screaming, but a bottom then a rise... another swift fall. And then again. And on it continues. Until when? Well we don't know. A little like life itself I guess.
What brings all this to mind is a conversation my young (er) brother and I had awhile back. About this "new" Iraq war now going on. Originally called Gulf War II by some. But wasn't it only a few weeks before that we had the Gulf War? Or so it seemed. A dozen years... and wasn't Vietnam only a few before that... it seemed so short while ago. And it's not just wars. When did the revolution begin? The Reagan Revolution as it's been called. I believe it was mentioned before June 1979. But it was called that shortly after. And wasn't that yesterday for some of us?
Now my brother and I are not exactly old geezers. We're not yet geriatric generation identified... ready for the old folks home... at least I don't think so. But I do know people in their late 20s and early 30s that think there was a long time between those two Gulf wars that run together almost as a continuum for us. And there are others in their early 20s for whom Vietnam is something about history and for whom Korea and World War II cannot be placed in time.
And it's not just wars, big events. Personalities too. Yes they know about Elvis and the Beatles, but they know more of Madonna and Britney and of rappers and such. But Sinatra, Damone, and Perry Como, who? An old movie to me is one oh, maybe before 1950.
An old movie to them is pre 1980.
What's going on with this time thing? Wasn't there a period back in some ancient history when there were no PCs, mobile phones, copying machines, the Internet or even color TVs? Just what the heck is all this digital stuff? Ah, your digital camera is included with your mobile phone and it connects to the Internet, sends messages, is 3G something, gives stock market quotes, plays music and... and... . Where did I put my Kodak Brownie? And my secretary who was so proud I co-opted the new Selectric typewriter from an associate... she died a few years back. And no one now has a secretary. They have PAs I think, but then there is a mechanical device of some sort that looks kind of like a Dictaphone but is called a PA. Help! I'm getting confused.
And those 25 years since June 11, 1979. What happened? Wars even I almost forget-Grenada invasion (1983), Haiti invasion (1994). And many small and not so small wars on the continent of Africa and in South and Central America. And elsewhere: Kosovo, Bosnia, first Chechen War, first Afghanistan War, the previously mentioned Gulf Wars... heck they've begun coming in two's.
What else? Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981, Panamanian President General Torrijos died in a plane crash in 1981 in what some have called mysterious circumstances. Reagan was shot in March 1981, the Pope in May the same year. Sometime in the past 25 years Prince Charles married Diane Spencer and King Hussein of Jordan who "monarched" for 46 years died. Sandra Day O'Connor became the first women on the U.S. Supreme Court and its first black, Thurgood Marshall, died. Michael Jackson became an adult superstar in the music and entertainment industry and his roller coaster lately seems to be taking one of those dips. Exxon oil made a mess of an oil spill off Alaska... Chernobyl happened. Barney Clark received the Jarvic-7 mechanical heart (a first) and died 128 days later. A Hungarian architectural professor by the name of Emo Rubik invented a cube that became a real puzzle.
More? Y2K, cloning and the sheep Dolly in Scotland (1987), the Hubble telescope (1990), something called Pokeman Cards, the stock market fell 508 points on October 19, 1987, the dot.com boom, the dot.com bust, the dot.com rises... and global warming (after a new ice age warning a few years earlier) but now maybe global cooling is the latest news... all caused by, in seeming contradiction, CO2 and a greenhouse effect. My, what's a Kyoto to do?
Yasser Arafat lasted the whole 25 years and before even. Ditto Castro. Hey, and Arafat vaulted from being a supposed instigator of the Black September movement (remember Munich and the Olympics a few years back and 11 dead Israeli athletes) to sharing a Nobel Peace prize with Yitzhele Rabin (shortly thereafter assassinated) and Shimon Peres. Yeah, that Arafat of the Fatah (some call them terrorists, some like the BBC and CNN don't), peacemaker extraordinaire, guested and feted by both French and American presidents, addressor to the UN, family man and finance man... now in a kind of bunker. But a more pleasant bunker than a guy name Saddam. And where is bin Laden (and that other guy who liked the Taliban)?
And somewhere in all the happenings of 25 years a wall fell and an empire collapsed.
So, what happened to time? To us? We worry (well, maybe we do, maybe we don't) about Tom and John and Betty and Ruth being able to be "joined to gather so that no man can put asunder" or some such crazy biblical stuff. Did I say biblical? Bad... bad. But a court in Massachusetts unanimously (well 4-3) says this is secular stuff, not biblical. And a Mayor in California says marriages like that are okay too. And a temporary injunction before a court fails because insufficient harm can not be shown to allow such relief. But, one wonders. Injunctive relief is equitable relief. And equitable relief flows directly from canon (read biblical law) and ecclesiastical courts. Before there were law courts there were "church" courts, a part of English and thus American common law (don't know from whence comes California law but pretty darn certain about Massachusetts law roots). Okay, now I know this: somehow in Massachusetts and in California this has something to do with the "separation of church and state" doctrine. But, I also know that common sense tells me ole Tom Jefferson writing to that small church had more understanding of common law than of what others think he was trying to formulate. And under common law marriage was well defined. And all the secular one can dream up can't get one by that. One can't arrive at equal protection and due process arguments until one defines marriage. And California I understand had a law on who could marry whom (rather a definition) so one can't get to an "insufficient harm" (equitable) reasoning; this is not to say. "irreparable harm" (different) can't trump the positive enforcement of a law.
Anyway, in the scheme of things I care more about it from a legal reasoning standpoint than any other. But, I guess I do have a civil rights problem with it all. That is, the argument that it is about civil rights, same as in “separate but equal" and Jim Crow I mean. Ah well, maybe I'm homophobic too. (Wasn't it Seinfield who said "not that there's anything wrong with that").
Anyway, this little rumination is about time.
And I remember, "What sort of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our time... and You Were There." (You Are There, TV program 1953-57, narrated by Walter Cronkite).
On June 11, 1979, 25 years ago this year, John Wayne died.
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Read also previous issue' articles:
What it Was, Was Football
An American in Perish
The Baseball Way to Pleasure and Wisdom
What a Fine Mess
At My Table
The King is Gone- and So are You
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