Page 3 - ACTL_Win23

PLEASE SEND CONTRIBUTIONS OR SUGGESTIONS TO ACTLJOURNAL@GMAIL.COM
MY STORYWORTH QUESTION LAST WEEK WAS “HOW HAS THE WORLD CHANGED IN YOUR LIFETIME?” I’M SEVENTY-SEVEN. IF YOU DEFINE LIFE AS FETAL VIABILITY, MY LIFETIME BE- GAN JUST BEFORE THE FORMAL SURRENDER OF JAPAN ABOARD THE USS MISSOURI ON SEPTEMBER 2, 1945. SO THERE’S THAT – MY LIFE BEGAN WHEN THE WORLD WAS AT WAR, ANDNOW...OH,HELL,WESTILLARE...
Well, let’s get into the way-back machine anyway. When I was born, we had a Democrat in the White House. A guy who was Vice President under a predecessor that many thought was much greater. That hasn’t changed. When I was born we didn’t have a Vice-President – the office remained vacant when Truman became President upon FDR’s death and wasn’t filled until 1949. Boy, has that changed – now a black, Asian woman with a Jewish husband. Whodathunk? That is change
– a good one.
The US population in 1945 was 138 million – we’re at 338 million now, every one of those two hundred million new folks cramming up the highway when I’m trying to drive. Driving used to be easier, more fun; change – neither good nor bad, just what it is.
I’ve always thought of myself as a Baby Boomer, but I’m not; technically I’m part of the Silent Generation (1927-1945), since Boomers are defined as folks born 1946-
1964. But I lived in the age of the Boomer, as the wave of the population bump brought on by the relief of World War II ending changed pretty much everything.
I feel more boomer than silent, and Boomers have experienced – and made – changes.
But the real change, I think, is our ability to get – and our inability to avoid – information in real time. Not necessarily accurate in- formation, but information. Tons of it. News. Fake news. Faux news.
When I was a boy, we got our local news from newspapers and our na- tional and international news from newsreels – at the movie theater, filmed weeks before. It was stale, but it was dramatic.
WINTER 2023 JOURNAL 2
When I was a kid, Clark Kent would duck into the nearest phone booth to change into his Super- man costume. Where does he go now? Technology has changed a lot, some for the better, some not so much. The cell phone. The robocall. The computer. Identity theft. The Internet. The dark web.