Does it ever fascinate you that some people who were a major part of history are still here? (war, bomb)
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I'm more amazed at having been born into such a pivotal time of change. I think of the thousands of years where change was slow, other than the changing of kingdom boundaries, and then BAM! from the first rudimentary planes to orbiting space station, vast unexplored areas to being able to have a god view of any place on earth, whale oil and kerosene lamps to massive hi-def LED tvs.
Yes. People in places all over the world for centuries lived in an unchanging environment never venturing more than a few miles outside of their rural homes and villages practicing traditional trades and farming.
They must have lived a relatively uneventful predictable life and a sense of continuity and stability. Life today is a growing firestorm of ever changing events some good and others fortelling the extinction of humanity itself.
I was always fascinated by the story of Winston Churchill's parrot (macaw) Charlie, who lived to be 105 but the family has since denied that he ever owned a bird of that description. The bird had very unkind things to say about Hitler. Cool story if it was true.
Some of those are younger than I am, so I see it from a different view. I remember the deaths of FDR and Henry Ford and Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Orville Wright and George V and Einstein and Rachmaninoff and Robert Frost and Picasso and D W Griffith..
I find it fascinating that some WWII-era European monarchs are still around. We recently lost King Michael of Romania (who was king in the 1920s!) and Otto von Habsburg (who I think was Crown Prince of a country that disappeared in 1918), but we still have Czar (!) Simeon of Bulgaria, who reigned during WWII. King Constantine of Greece is still around, too.
Your post reminded me of when I had my first baby, on December 7, 1966. It was the 25th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I was not born when Pearl Harbor happened, so I had no basis for understanding how little time had gone by since Pearl Harbor.
Now, I am 70, and that baby is over 50. It is only with age that we gain perspective on history and our place in it.
My grandparents were born in the 1880s. Can you imagine the changes in the world that they saw?
When I was a kid, my mother spent hours ironing clothes and listening to the radio. She listened to Art Linkletter. Well into my middle age, Art was alive and well, so I thought, as long as the people who I thought of as old were still alive, I must still be young.
Now, at 70, I think that as long as Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney are rocking on, I must not be old yet.
My grandparents were born in the 1880s. Can you imagine the changes in the world that they saw?
My Grandfather was born in the 1800s. He saw the world change from horses, newspapers and steam trains, to electric trams & trains, motor cars doing over 100mph, radio, planes, washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, passenger air flights, telephones, film, TV and men in space.
We think we have seen change by seeing the moon landings on TV and the introduction of personal computers. We saw nothing to them.
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