I hate seeing that headline. Not that I don't find these newspaper articles or TV specials well-researched and fascinating; many of them lately, in fact, have been some of the best reading or watching I've done all summer. After all, how many newspaper recipes where the main ingredient is eggplant (because no one knows what to do with it once they've grown some) can one plow through, or how many TV game shows can one watch, where the main thrill seems to be the bleeping of words the host "accidentally" let slip out?
The problem I have with anything that begins with the phrase, "fifty years ago today" is that I was there. Well not there, there, exactly, as in hovering around "Mission Control" in Houston during the 1969 moon landing, or hanging over the edge of the infamous bridge in Chappaquiddick, but there in terms of being alive at the time. There is just something about opening a history textbook and being able to read about an event that occurred in one's own lifetime that is a little disarming...especially when the chapter describing said event is only about halfway through said volume.
Back when I was in high school, my history textbook ended with a picture of General MacArthur returning to the Philippines almost a year before he accepted the Japanese official surrender on a ship in Tokyo Bay. Never mind that by the time I was a senior (and the same book was still in use) four more presidents had passed through the Oval Office, the Korean War had been fought, and thousands of soldiers were currently entrenched in Vietnam. There was also a wall built in the middle of Berlin, a so-called Cold War waging with the Soviet Union and when they weren't burning bras or draft cards, most American teenagers spent their time listening to Rock 'n' Roll. All of these things, by the way, have now had at least a 50th anniversary celebration.
According to my granddaughter, history textbooks are now electronic, thus eliminating the dilemma of how to "keep up" with the latest historical events. While I have to admit this is an excellent solution to the educational gaps of the past, there was something to be said for kids having to find out some of this information on their own. Once, when I was teaching in a small private middle school, one of my advisees came to me in despair over a history project he'd been assigned.
"What do you have to do?" I asked sympathetically.
"Well," the boy groaned, "we're studying the Vietnam War and I have to interview someone who was alive at the time and get their perspective on the events."
"That seems interesting," I said. "What seems to be the problem?"
He groaned again, then threw up his hands and sank miserably into a chair across from my desk.
"Where am I ever gonna find someone like that?" he complained. "I don't know anyone that old!"
Then there was the time I was teaching in a girls' boarding school...my first teaching job, actually...and several of my colleagues and I were playing "where were you when..." in the dining hall one evening. Depending on our assorted experiences and ages, we were comparing memories of Kennedy's assassination, while our students bolted their unidentifiable food, fascinated by this adult conversation.
Finally, one of them looked up excitedly and cheerfully added, "when Kennedy was assassinated, I was in the hospital!"
Alarmed, I turned to her and anxiously asked, "In the hospital? What was wrong with you?"
She looked at me somewhat confused, then stated proudly, "I was being born!"
Age is truly relative.
So, here's what I'm thinking. In 2069, there will be a 50th anniversary celebration of the Best Selling novels from 2019...the only reason this has not happened before being that this year saw the publication of more truly exceptional works of literature than any in the past. Among these books, of course, was the newest novel by the now well-known American author, Erni Johnson, whose books, because her writing skill was not truly recognized at the time, had gone out of print. (Hey, if you're thinking this is a stretch, it's not...the same thing happened to F. Scott Fitzgerald, you know.) Now of course, all six of Johnson's novels have been republished and are flying off the shelves.
At a special ceremony on Cape Cod, Johnson's granddaughter (now 65) accepts a plaque to be placed on Long Beach in Centerville in her grandmother's honor. When asked what she thought of her grandmother's literary contributions, Johnson's descendant replies, "well, I wasn't much of a reader at the time...in fact, few of us were...but now I, like everyone else, truly appreciate how talented she was!"
"If only she were here to see this," the reporter responds sadly, as a respectful silence blankets the crowd.
Not really sure why I imagine this happening...or for that matter why I even wish that it does...unless, of course, there really is an afterlife and I can be hovering above Long Beach to see it.
A few weeks from now is the 50th Anniversary of the original Woodstock Music Festival and I was there. I mean really there, there. We had to park two miles away and it rained for three days; or at least for the day and a half we were at Woodstock before my friends and I gave up and went home. I actually bought a ticket... for $6...I imagine it would be worth a fortune today; however, it was in the pocket of the jeans I immediately threw in the washer (and dryer) as soon as I got home. Maybe that 2069 literary achievement celebration is not such a great idea after all.
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