Small Town News

The moments youre in become history

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There are the events of history and there are the people who were alive during them. There were guys just like me who lived during the notable | events of history.

Somebody was alive when, in 1066, William fought Harold at Hastings. A grandfather told his grandson, "1 was alive when William came over from Normandy and kicked Harold's backside. That's why we're living under the Norman heel today." The boy was suitably impressed.

In any event 1 started thinking about what events in my lifetime would make the history books.

I was bom in 1935 so 1 was alive during the Great Depression but I was not

aware of it. My dad was in the Army and my mother's parents, who lived in a small, isolated farming and ranching community, were more or less self sufficient.

The first major event that I was fully aware of was World War II. I was 6 years old when it started and it made a big impression.

I was alive when you put mercurochrome or sulfa powder on a cut, when you were vaccinated for typhus, small pox and

diphtheria and worried about getting polio for which there was no vaccine.

F.D.R. was President when I was bom; he had been elected in 1932 and won the office in 1936, 1940 and 1944. As a child 1 supposed that he was president in perpetuity.

I was alive when there was no atom bomb and a person felt secure in the mountains of Idaho. Now there is no place on earth that is secure. "If the bomb doesn't get ya, the fallout will."

I was alive before the advent of AIDS. Talk about a change in lifestyle.

T was also present for the wars in Korea and Vietnam. I was too young to fight in Korea, too old

for Vietnam. When I am alive during a war I think it will never be forgotten but in actuality it will be forgotten as soon as the next war starts.

I have never thought about WWI much. I didn't learn about WWI until I was in my thirties.

I was alive when all food was organic, all livestock roamed the range and chickens looked like chickens.

DNA was not understood. Genetics engineering was just a gleam in a biochemist's eye.

Thus Spake The Old Fogy, thinking that something memorable is happening somewhere right now, but we won't know about it until later



Copyright 2011 The Malakoff News, Malakoff, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2011 The Malakoff News Malakoff, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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