I am as happy as the next person to embrace science. I like technology, and I'm not afraid to use it. I am all for progress, as long as it's forward, and not lateral, or, worse yet, backwards.
So I have been all over the global warming thing. I have recycled. I avoid spray cans with CFC's. I looked for cars that used newer types of refrigerants as soon as they became available, back when they switched from the old freon systems to the newer models, and I still had money to buy stuff.
If I had any money now, I would replace my current air conditioner with a more earth friendly system, and I would simply adore the opportunity to replace my rapidly aging fridge with an upgraded, energy star rated version. I bring my cotton cloth bags to the grocery store, and I try not to throw stuff in the landfills that can easily be dropped off for reuse, like old computers, for example.
But this morning, November 15, I got out of bed, walked to the back door to let my dogs out, and was surprised to be hit in the eye with a falling pellet of, can it be? Please say it isn't so. Snow.
I realize that many people enjoy the snow. I know that some people (people I actually know and love, for heaven's sakes,) actually look forward to it, like a birthday or the Fourth of July, because it means you get to do things like ski or snowmobile. Back in the northland where I was raised, the goofy populace has even created an entire carnival specifically for the purpose of celebrating snow. If you are one of the delusional and that is how you feel about snow, stop reading now. Just do not go any further. Because I am definitely not one of those people. And this not a celebration of anything. Except endurance, perhaps.
I consider snow an obstacle to be overcome. Or to run away from. That was the answer I found to be preferable, in fact. Which is partially why I live 425 miles away from my very own mother, who is much tougher than I am, and works harder, too. She does not hate the snow. She lives on a farm, she has to deal with getting out of her driveway when there is too much of it, and she still doesn't hate it. There is nothing you can do about people with that attitude except to humor them, I've decided.
The appropriate attitude, in my opinion, the one which I, myself, espouse and to which I hold fast (obviously,) is that snow is a barrier to happiness, and must be avoided at all costs. I'll leave it for the polar bears to frolic in, I hear they are losing their environment, anyway. (That whole global warming thing, again, although you certainly couldn't tell by the weather out there this morning.) They can have my snow. If I never again saw another flake of the white stuff, it would not distress me in the least. All snow means to me is that we are being forced, against our will, to measure the rain, and who needs that?
I am, at this moment, sulking on the sofa in my living room, blinds tightly shut against the sight of white precipitation pelting out of the clouds. When the dogs look out the door and think twice, I know it's time to pull up the blanket and hibernate for the day.
I realize that the Christmas card industry would be in sad shape without snow to sell the cozy picture of fireplaces merrily crackling and churches nestled in the glen with a shimmering glaze of white surrounding it like a clean blanket. But let's not kid ourselves. Snow is cold, it is wet, and it causes accidents. Enough said, I think.
One of the better reasons to live in Kansas City is that we do not engage in snow glorification activities around here. We are more into beating it back into submission, or de-icing it into liquid again. Winter, for us, generally starts right around Christmas, ends before my daughter's February birthday, and with only the occasional exception, consists of two or three snowfalls of varying depth with a melt in between. So the last thing I was expecting to see this morning was little pellets of snow pounding down from the sky. I went to bed, it was clear and 45 degrees, I wake up and it's 31 and snowing?
Of course, it could be worse. Here in the Heartland of the Country (that's what we like to call ourselves, because it sounds more interesting than Flyover-World,) we have frequent ice storms. I realize that people in other places have the occasional ice incident, giving them the illusion that they understand the nature of that particular beast. But I can say with absolute honesty, I had NO IDEA what an ice storm was until I moved to Kansas City.
You can watch the ice build up on your trees until the tops are bent almost to the ground from the weight. The boughs will all droop sadly, like a bereaved Christmas tree the day after New Years.
Power lines snap like spaghetti noodles, and the city will be paralyzed for days to weeks. Families huddle around their gas fireplaces, because the furnace won't click on without their electronic starters, and people get to know each other closer up and a little too personally.
I am happy to report that in the suburb where I currently have my place of abode, we do not have many actual trees, and most of the lines are underground. We have tree wanna-be's, those hopeful little glorified branches bravely standing up from the ground with their 15 leaves fluttering below. But it would be impossible to classify most of them as real trees. My point being, we have less problems with them falling on power lines, thus forcing us to self-actualize with our closest relatives in frigid climes. This, in case you were unaware, is a recipe for disaster, one which I would prefer never to attempt.
In other words, (for those who have pulled up their thesaurus, please minimize again, this is not a vocab prep for the SAT, you know,) I have never had to face a week without power, which is probably just as well. With a teenaged daughter in residence, a week without showering facilities would not take us in a positive direction, and we are not that interested in knowing more about each other than we already do.
I imagine that the snow, which is not sticking even now, will quickly dissipate and be gone, and the warmer weather will soon reappear, this little ripple of cold in the cosmos just a harbinger of things to come, instead of the forward wave of reality that it appears to be at this moment. But I am certain that the day will come too soon that once again, the outside world will become a winter wonderland, and I will find myself on the inside looking out at an unfamiliar landscape of white. Don't come around here trying to sell global warming today. I am not in the buying mood. Save it for summer, when it's 100 degrees in the shade, and then we'll talk.
Come to think of it, I had better go pay my gas bill, so I will be sure to have the fireplace ready for the worst which is to come.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Life as art....
Last night I had the great privilege of attending my daughter's high school fall play. She is stage manager this year, instead of actress, and has found the job to be both more difficult and more rewarding. It is frustrating that if she does her job well, no one notices, and that is, in and of itself, the compliment. But if things go badly, everyone will notice, and that responsibility will come right back on her.
The happy outcome last night, if that is the correct term to ascribe to it, was that the play went fantastically well. It was a tremendous presentation of a very thought provoking and difficult topic, and the final curtain call resulted in an immediate standing ovation, led, not by the proud parents, but by classmates who entered expecting to have a little fun, but instead got challenged and prodded in their own beliefs. The play they are presenting this year is "Dead Man Walking," and I will admit, it wasn't what I expected when I walked in the door.
[A disclosure is required here. I never saw the movie that starred Susan Sarandon. The death penalty is not something I like to think about, and I feared the movie would sermonize and try to unfairly sway my opinion on a subject I would rather ignore. So I don't know whether the movie has an agenda or not. But this post has nothing to do with the movie, it is entirely about a production at my daughter's high school, and my comments are strictly limited to that presentation.]
The death penalty is, for some, a clear cut issue. I have heard people on both sides of this issue make proclamations of its rightness or wrongness as though there is no murky middle ground, no point of confusion, no religious or moral imperative involved.
I find, for myself, it is simply not that easy. I cannot put aside my own penchant for seeing the pesky gray areas of life, allowing me to come down squarely on one side or the other. Instead, I am caught in the middle between the two extremes, one foot in each camp, in a sort of split decision that doesn't make sense even to me.
I try, in all things, to fairly examine an issue from all sides before I take any position on a subject. I want to see things from that frame of reference, try to understand why people feel, or think, or believe, what they do.
I do not enjoy debating with people who have different opinions from those I myself espouse. Generally, I fail to hold up my end of the discussion, because I often find that I am in sympathy with their views, even when I have a different conclusion, unless they are so entrenched in their own extreme agenda as to be completely unreasonable and incapable of considering there is any other way of thinking. I am not much on fanatics of any variety - in fact, I believe those who polarize an issue reduce the possibility of resolution, because they cannot accept any outcome other than their own solution.
For me, the death penalty is filled with difficult issues on both sides, and that is why this play was so thought provoking. Although it is the story of Sister Helen Prejean, who among other things has counseled death row inmates prior to their execution and has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, it was, at least in this presentation, not a hammer with which we are beaten on the subject. Instead, it was a precis of the two sides, which leaves you to make your own decision about what is right, and what is just. And whether or not anyone can be justified through it.
The actress who played Sister Prejean is an accomplished performer, and took us inside the torment and confusion she felt as she battled within herself. We saw her struggling to reconcile her belief in the sanctity of human life, even if that life was in the form of a convicted murderer, with her sympathy for, and understanding of, the families who were victimized by his willful actions. The anger and rage, on all sides, were presented fairly, not in equal measure, but as they are. It was clear where the sympathy was intended to be directed, and it was not with the criminal.
The play also shows the victimization of a family often forgotten, that family who will be bereaved by the execution itself. It was clear where the responsibility lay at all times - Sister Prejean never allowed him to excuse himself for the injuries he had inflicted on everyone involved.
You saw the mother of the murderer questioning where she went wrong, and how she could have raised someone so depraved as to perpetrate this crime. But she also recalled him as a child, and grieved and mourned for what had gone wrong. While the criminal received no sympathy at all, you could not fail to be moved over the grief and sadness that his family experienced because of his actions.
You saw the family of the murdered boy falling apart as they struggled to come to terms with this horrific event that had happened to them. Their family was rent asunder, not once, but twice, by the violent actions of someone for whom they had no sympathy, toward whom they felt only fully understandable rage.
You saw the family of the murdered girl, violated by the existence of the criminal as they recalled their daughter's final moments of life, harboring their own hatred. It was evident that they were pinning their future on the elimination of the one who had brought death to their door. You could only hope that in the end, they found the solace they were seeking, even as you suspected it would not. The hurt that he had inflicted could not be assuaged by his death, I don't think, because their loss would remain, unresolved.
You heard the story in the words of the criminal himself, changing as time passes and he approaches his own end, the fear of what lay beyond this life finally, ultimately, forcing him to acknowledge for the first time his wrongs and his grievous part in his own demise. His ultimate statement to the families he has deprived has exactly the impact you would expect - too little, too late, and suspiciously self-serving.
But the deeper issue it stirred up for me is the question that transcends the basic questions that usually accompany the death penalty - who are we, as human beings, to play God? What about grace and reconciliation? What about the salvation of the convicted?
If we believe God loves us all, then we must, by extension, believe God loves even the least of us, the scum of society, those for whom we reserve nothing but disgust. If there is always the possibility that God can enter a heart and soul and change that person, if salvation is available unto death, then is it right to hasten that death, and possibly deprive someone of the opportunity for repentance and reconciliation?
Just as troubling for me, I think, is the suspicion that the execution does not, in the end, bring resolution, peace, acceptance or even a sense of justice to those who have already been victimized. I don't know, because I have, thankfully, never had to face that particular trial. But I think it is a question worth asking those who have traveled that road. I think we should, at the very least, determine whether, in the end, it is the execution which allows them to move forward, freed at least from the haunting loss. Or if, in fact, they would have been better served by the knowledge that the one who victimized them was forced to live for the rest of their life in a cell, giving them opportunity to reflect on their crime, and what they have done.
As I said, I have no answers. I do not feel guilt over the execution of a Tim McVeigh. He went unrepentant to his death, and he does not, in my opinion, deserve to breathe the air and share the earth of the people he victimized. But I cannot, in the end, say I would be willing to be the one to make it happen, to make the injection, to end a life, to be responsible for carrying out what the law says is the just conclusion, either. It is too much responsibility for me, and I would feel that I had usurped God's plan.
At the same time, perhaps it is fulfillment of God's plan for their life to end thusly, and in experiencing that final penalty, the life has ended exactly as God knew it must. In the end, perhaps it is that very application which is required to bring a hardened human being to a place where he or she must open their heart and allow God to enter, or to finally reject, once and for all, the salvation that awaits them if only they will accept.
In the end, I am still where I started, with one foot in each camp. But perhaps, in the end, that is where we should be. I think that is the higher calling of arts in the school - to make us think, to provoke, to educate and to force us to confront those things with which we are uncomfortable. In that, this high school presentation fulfilled it's mission.
And so, I send my daughter bouquets of good wishes, wrapped up in hugs, and a kiss for luck. You are a success, not only at stage managing, but artistically, because your presentation, your vision, has done what good art always does - it has made me think beyond the moment.
There is no greater accolade I can give.
The happy outcome last night, if that is the correct term to ascribe to it, was that the play went fantastically well. It was a tremendous presentation of a very thought provoking and difficult topic, and the final curtain call resulted in an immediate standing ovation, led, not by the proud parents, but by classmates who entered expecting to have a little fun, but instead got challenged and prodded in their own beliefs. The play they are presenting this year is "Dead Man Walking," and I will admit, it wasn't what I expected when I walked in the door.
[A disclosure is required here. I never saw the movie that starred Susan Sarandon. The death penalty is not something I like to think about, and I feared the movie would sermonize and try to unfairly sway my opinion on a subject I would rather ignore. So I don't know whether the movie has an agenda or not. But this post has nothing to do with the movie, it is entirely about a production at my daughter's high school, and my comments are strictly limited to that presentation.]
The death penalty is, for some, a clear cut issue. I have heard people on both sides of this issue make proclamations of its rightness or wrongness as though there is no murky middle ground, no point of confusion, no religious or moral imperative involved.
I find, for myself, it is simply not that easy. I cannot put aside my own penchant for seeing the pesky gray areas of life, allowing me to come down squarely on one side or the other. Instead, I am caught in the middle between the two extremes, one foot in each camp, in a sort of split decision that doesn't make sense even to me.
I try, in all things, to fairly examine an issue from all sides before I take any position on a subject. I want to see things from that frame of reference, try to understand why people feel, or think, or believe, what they do.
I do not enjoy debating with people who have different opinions from those I myself espouse. Generally, I fail to hold up my end of the discussion, because I often find that I am in sympathy with their views, even when I have a different conclusion, unless they are so entrenched in their own extreme agenda as to be completely unreasonable and incapable of considering there is any other way of thinking. I am not much on fanatics of any variety - in fact, I believe those who polarize an issue reduce the possibility of resolution, because they cannot accept any outcome other than their own solution.
For me, the death penalty is filled with difficult issues on both sides, and that is why this play was so thought provoking. Although it is the story of Sister Helen Prejean, who among other things has counseled death row inmates prior to their execution and has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, it was, at least in this presentation, not a hammer with which we are beaten on the subject. Instead, it was a precis of the two sides, which leaves you to make your own decision about what is right, and what is just. And whether or not anyone can be justified through it.
The actress who played Sister Prejean is an accomplished performer, and took us inside the torment and confusion she felt as she battled within herself. We saw her struggling to reconcile her belief in the sanctity of human life, even if that life was in the form of a convicted murderer, with her sympathy for, and understanding of, the families who were victimized by his willful actions. The anger and rage, on all sides, were presented fairly, not in equal measure, but as they are. It was clear where the sympathy was intended to be directed, and it was not with the criminal.
The play also shows the victimization of a family often forgotten, that family who will be bereaved by the execution itself. It was clear where the responsibility lay at all times - Sister Prejean never allowed him to excuse himself for the injuries he had inflicted on everyone involved.
You saw the mother of the murderer questioning where she went wrong, and how she could have raised someone so depraved as to perpetrate this crime. But she also recalled him as a child, and grieved and mourned for what had gone wrong. While the criminal received no sympathy at all, you could not fail to be moved over the grief and sadness that his family experienced because of his actions.
You saw the family of the murdered boy falling apart as they struggled to come to terms with this horrific event that had happened to them. Their family was rent asunder, not once, but twice, by the violent actions of someone for whom they had no sympathy, toward whom they felt only fully understandable rage.
You saw the family of the murdered girl, violated by the existence of the criminal as they recalled their daughter's final moments of life, harboring their own hatred. It was evident that they were pinning their future on the elimination of the one who had brought death to their door. You could only hope that in the end, they found the solace they were seeking, even as you suspected it would not. The hurt that he had inflicted could not be assuaged by his death, I don't think, because their loss would remain, unresolved.
You heard the story in the words of the criminal himself, changing as time passes and he approaches his own end, the fear of what lay beyond this life finally, ultimately, forcing him to acknowledge for the first time his wrongs and his grievous part in his own demise. His ultimate statement to the families he has deprived has exactly the impact you would expect - too little, too late, and suspiciously self-serving.
But the deeper issue it stirred up for me is the question that transcends the basic questions that usually accompany the death penalty - who are we, as human beings, to play God? What about grace and reconciliation? What about the salvation of the convicted?
If we believe God loves us all, then we must, by extension, believe God loves even the least of us, the scum of society, those for whom we reserve nothing but disgust. If there is always the possibility that God can enter a heart and soul and change that person, if salvation is available unto death, then is it right to hasten that death, and possibly deprive someone of the opportunity for repentance and reconciliation?
Just as troubling for me, I think, is the suspicion that the execution does not, in the end, bring resolution, peace, acceptance or even a sense of justice to those who have already been victimized. I don't know, because I have, thankfully, never had to face that particular trial. But I think it is a question worth asking those who have traveled that road. I think we should, at the very least, determine whether, in the end, it is the execution which allows them to move forward, freed at least from the haunting loss. Or if, in fact, they would have been better served by the knowledge that the one who victimized them was forced to live for the rest of their life in a cell, giving them opportunity to reflect on their crime, and what they have done.
As I said, I have no answers. I do not feel guilt over the execution of a Tim McVeigh. He went unrepentant to his death, and he does not, in my opinion, deserve to breathe the air and share the earth of the people he victimized. But I cannot, in the end, say I would be willing to be the one to make it happen, to make the injection, to end a life, to be responsible for carrying out what the law says is the just conclusion, either. It is too much responsibility for me, and I would feel that I had usurped God's plan.
At the same time, perhaps it is fulfillment of God's plan for their life to end thusly, and in experiencing that final penalty, the life has ended exactly as God knew it must. In the end, perhaps it is that very application which is required to bring a hardened human being to a place where he or she must open their heart and allow God to enter, or to finally reject, once and for all, the salvation that awaits them if only they will accept.
In the end, I am still where I started, with one foot in each camp. But perhaps, in the end, that is where we should be. I think that is the higher calling of arts in the school - to make us think, to provoke, to educate and to force us to confront those things with which we are uncomfortable. In that, this high school presentation fulfilled it's mission.
And so, I send my daughter bouquets of good wishes, wrapped up in hugs, and a kiss for luck. You are a success, not only at stage managing, but artistically, because your presentation, your vision, has done what good art always does - it has made me think beyond the moment.
There is no greater accolade I can give.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Veteran's Day
Today is a day set aside to honor our men and women who have served our country in the armed forces. It is, I think, impossible for those of us who have never served to understand the true sacrifices, as well as the experiences, of those who have given themselves to this nation in that way. We talk, rather vacuously, I often think, about the sacrifices our military make for us, without knowing anything about what those sacrifices really entail. We pull out patriotism like it's a badge to wear, a bumper sticker or a pin on our lapel to sell our particular point of view, without understanding what the underlying efforts were really about.
Living where I do, I am accustomed to seeing footage on the news as the troops come and go from the various forts in our area. We become almost immune to the emotion, seeing the happy faces as people are reunited, and the sad faces as families watch their loved ones disappear into the unknown. But in that fleeting footage, we understand very little of what happens behind the scenes, as spouses become single parents, children live with daily fear that their mother or father will never come home again, and they try to live as normally as possible while knowing that someone they love is never out of harm's way.
This was brought home to me in a totally new way last spring. The picture of sacrifice that I think will remain with me forever was shown on the local news last April. A father came home on leave unexpectedly, and his teenaged daughter did not know. She arrived for her spring prom at the appointed location, beautifully dressed in her long gown, hair done, makeup perfect, attractive young man at her elbow.
She walked in the door, and the news photographer had the fun of filming her reaction upon seeing her father standing there in front of her. She burst into tears spontaneously, paralyzed for the moment upon seeing someone who was so important to her there in front of her so unexpectedly. Her dad walked over to her to hug her, and she just clung to him sobbing uncontrollably.
The sacrifice he had made for his country, for me, for all of us, was not his alone. It was, in a very real way, the sacrifice made by his children, who were deprived of someone whose presence should have been a given in their everyday life that made it real for me, made me even more grateful for their willingness to serve. I still weep every time I recall that picture in my mind, her emotion so overwhelming it reached me even through the television.
We see on the news when the soldiers come and go, but those are routine events, husbands and wives embracing, a few tears being shed, stoic smiles hiding breaking hearts that never let us inside to see what they are really feeling. They don't want to make things harder for each other, they want to send off their loved one, or leave them behind, with a smile as their last memory, and not the tears, I imagine.
But in that unexpected reunion, we glimpsed for a moment the raw emotion, the reality of feelings, the true depth of what is being given up. In seeing a teenager, who is usually fighting for independence, come completely undone simply for seeing her father, we see the face of the real sacrifice our military families are making. It increases my gratitude on this day, as we remember all of our veterans who made the same sacrifices, and for their families that they left behind.
I have several uncles who fought in World War II. Two of my uncles were in the ground forces in Europe. When I learned about the Battle of the Bulge, it was sobering to realize that I had a personal connection to that far off event.
I have an uncle who received a medal of honor from Charles de Gaulle himself, along with a certificate which he still proudly displays in his home. That is not just a piece of metal and a piece of paper for him. It is a tangible symbol of his experience, and a visible reminder that he was one of the fortunate ones who made it home again. It was the way that France chose to thank him for his service to them, and it is a reminder that he is, and always will be, a hero to them.
I simply cannot reconcile the uncles I know and love fighting for the very existence of our nation, and for our way of life that I so take for granted. I understood that my mother and her siblings and her parents must have worried and been concerned about each other. But it didn't really come home to me, because they were young, before my time, and I simply could not get my mind around it, until I saw that young girl's reaction to unexpectedly seeing her father. Now I think I might begin to understand the full scope of the sacrifice that really occurred, and it makes me that much more grateful.
I had two other uncles who served in the Pacific arena in the navy. I don't know how any of them came to be in the branch of the service they chose - I don't think any of them waited to be conscripted, I believe they all volunteered, as so many did in that war for the heart and soul of the world's future. I imagine it was a different sort of war for them, on the water, instead of having solid ground under their feet. I imagine them on the deck, looking out at the vast expanse of water, wondering what dangers lay hidden just beneath the impenetrable surface.
One of my uncles, my Uncle Fritz, was on a ship in the Far East somewhere. Like most veterans, he has never really talked to those of us who weren't there about his experiences, so I have never had the first hand account. But I did hear a story, brief and bare bones, from my mother, which I will share with you. I cannot describe his sacrifice, although I think he is probably very proud that no one on his sunken ship died in the disaster. But I do know from my mother the anxious waiting to hear that he was okay.
In the days before cell phones and the 24/7 internet news cycle, the information they awaited took a lifetime to come. It must have been excruciating for those who waited upon hearing of a battle in which their loved ones were engaged. And so it was for my grandparents, and his siblings, when the ship that my Uncle Fritz was on was sunk.
My mother was then in the Cities going to business college, and she has recalled for me walking down the street, and suddenly, unexpectedly, there was her brother, alive and in the flesh standing there before her. She knew before then that he was all right, that happy information had somehow made its way to them, already. But she had not known when she would see him again, when suddenly, there he was in front of her. He had come home on leave, intending to surprise his family with the gift of himself. The raw emotion that seeing him induced in her convinced my mom that their mother should not be surprised that way, and they made an advance call to announce his arrival shortly thereafter in my little home town!
I can well imagine how she must have wanted to cling to him, to hold his arm, to gaze at his face, holding on to the reality for a moment before he was gone again, and the worry would return. I think she may well have felt like that young lady who walked into a prom slightly sad over the father who was missing that once in a lifetime moment for her, only to realize that he was, in fact right there in front of her. [I would add that the young people prevailed upon him to remain with them that evening, and he enjoyed his daughter's senior prom as much as she did, which, in my opinion, is quite a sacrifice in and of itself!]
I have several cousins who also went off to another war, in a land far more puzzling and ephemeral for us, a land filled with people we have never understood, and probably still don't. As seems to always be true, they don't talk about it to those of us who weren't there, I guess they realize we can never understand, so I don't know anything about their experiences there. But I do know they were thought of all the time by their families waiting back home, and they thought of us, too.
For me, that war is remembered by the wearing of MIA bracelets, and protests here at home. I also have a beautiful collection of stamps, sent to me from Okinawa by my cousin's thoughtful wife who knew I collected them, and helped to expand my collection. [I still have them, and they are beautiful. I am thinking I should frame them or something, because they are special to me, but like everything else, I haven't gotten around to it.] I don't know what any of my cousins did in Southeast Asia, or what they saw or thought or felt. But I know that the experience helped to define them, changed them, made them the men they are today. I am very proud of them, and I fly my flag today to honor them and their service, not only to this country, but for me.
We are unquestionably fortunate to live in a country which is worth fighting, even dying, for. I am grateful for the sacrifices that have been made so that I can sit in my cozy house this morning and write these inadequate words of gratitude. Having come through this contentious election season, it is, I think, important to be reminded that the freedoms we enjoy to choose our leaders and complain about them afterwards have not come cheaply. The cost has been great, and we owe those who have paid it a debt that can never be repaid.
To those veterans in my own family, and to veterans everywhere, thank you.
Living where I do, I am accustomed to seeing footage on the news as the troops come and go from the various forts in our area. We become almost immune to the emotion, seeing the happy faces as people are reunited, and the sad faces as families watch their loved ones disappear into the unknown. But in that fleeting footage, we understand very little of what happens behind the scenes, as spouses become single parents, children live with daily fear that their mother or father will never come home again, and they try to live as normally as possible while knowing that someone they love is never out of harm's way.
This was brought home to me in a totally new way last spring. The picture of sacrifice that I think will remain with me forever was shown on the local news last April. A father came home on leave unexpectedly, and his teenaged daughter did not know. She arrived for her spring prom at the appointed location, beautifully dressed in her long gown, hair done, makeup perfect, attractive young man at her elbow.
She walked in the door, and the news photographer had the fun of filming her reaction upon seeing her father standing there in front of her. She burst into tears spontaneously, paralyzed for the moment upon seeing someone who was so important to her there in front of her so unexpectedly. Her dad walked over to her to hug her, and she just clung to him sobbing uncontrollably.
The sacrifice he had made for his country, for me, for all of us, was not his alone. It was, in a very real way, the sacrifice made by his children, who were deprived of someone whose presence should have been a given in their everyday life that made it real for me, made me even more grateful for their willingness to serve. I still weep every time I recall that picture in my mind, her emotion so overwhelming it reached me even through the television.
We see on the news when the soldiers come and go, but those are routine events, husbands and wives embracing, a few tears being shed, stoic smiles hiding breaking hearts that never let us inside to see what they are really feeling. They don't want to make things harder for each other, they want to send off their loved one, or leave them behind, with a smile as their last memory, and not the tears, I imagine.
But in that unexpected reunion, we glimpsed for a moment the raw emotion, the reality of feelings, the true depth of what is being given up. In seeing a teenager, who is usually fighting for independence, come completely undone simply for seeing her father, we see the face of the real sacrifice our military families are making. It increases my gratitude on this day, as we remember all of our veterans who made the same sacrifices, and for their families that they left behind.
I have several uncles who fought in World War II. Two of my uncles were in the ground forces in Europe. When I learned about the Battle of the Bulge, it was sobering to realize that I had a personal connection to that far off event.
I have an uncle who received a medal of honor from Charles de Gaulle himself, along with a certificate which he still proudly displays in his home. That is not just a piece of metal and a piece of paper for him. It is a tangible symbol of his experience, and a visible reminder that he was one of the fortunate ones who made it home again. It was the way that France chose to thank him for his service to them, and it is a reminder that he is, and always will be, a hero to them.
I simply cannot reconcile the uncles I know and love fighting for the very existence of our nation, and for our way of life that I so take for granted. I understood that my mother and her siblings and her parents must have worried and been concerned about each other. But it didn't really come home to me, because they were young, before my time, and I simply could not get my mind around it, until I saw that young girl's reaction to unexpectedly seeing her father. Now I think I might begin to understand the full scope of the sacrifice that really occurred, and it makes me that much more grateful.
I had two other uncles who served in the Pacific arena in the navy. I don't know how any of them came to be in the branch of the service they chose - I don't think any of them waited to be conscripted, I believe they all volunteered, as so many did in that war for the heart and soul of the world's future. I imagine it was a different sort of war for them, on the water, instead of having solid ground under their feet. I imagine them on the deck, looking out at the vast expanse of water, wondering what dangers lay hidden just beneath the impenetrable surface.
One of my uncles, my Uncle Fritz, was on a ship in the Far East somewhere. Like most veterans, he has never really talked to those of us who weren't there about his experiences, so I have never had the first hand account. But I did hear a story, brief and bare bones, from my mother, which I will share with you. I cannot describe his sacrifice, although I think he is probably very proud that no one on his sunken ship died in the disaster. But I do know from my mother the anxious waiting to hear that he was okay.
In the days before cell phones and the 24/7 internet news cycle, the information they awaited took a lifetime to come. It must have been excruciating for those who waited upon hearing of a battle in which their loved ones were engaged. And so it was for my grandparents, and his siblings, when the ship that my Uncle Fritz was on was sunk.
My mother was then in the Cities going to business college, and she has recalled for me walking down the street, and suddenly, unexpectedly, there was her brother, alive and in the flesh standing there before her. She knew before then that he was all right, that happy information had somehow made its way to them, already. But she had not known when she would see him again, when suddenly, there he was in front of her. He had come home on leave, intending to surprise his family with the gift of himself. The raw emotion that seeing him induced in her convinced my mom that their mother should not be surprised that way, and they made an advance call to announce his arrival shortly thereafter in my little home town!
I can well imagine how she must have wanted to cling to him, to hold his arm, to gaze at his face, holding on to the reality for a moment before he was gone again, and the worry would return. I think she may well have felt like that young lady who walked into a prom slightly sad over the father who was missing that once in a lifetime moment for her, only to realize that he was, in fact right there in front of her. [I would add that the young people prevailed upon him to remain with them that evening, and he enjoyed his daughter's senior prom as much as she did, which, in my opinion, is quite a sacrifice in and of itself!]
I have several cousins who also went off to another war, in a land far more puzzling and ephemeral for us, a land filled with people we have never understood, and probably still don't. As seems to always be true, they don't talk about it to those of us who weren't there, I guess they realize we can never understand, so I don't know anything about their experiences there. But I do know they were thought of all the time by their families waiting back home, and they thought of us, too.
For me, that war is remembered by the wearing of MIA bracelets, and protests here at home. I also have a beautiful collection of stamps, sent to me from Okinawa by my cousin's thoughtful wife who knew I collected them, and helped to expand my collection. [I still have them, and they are beautiful. I am thinking I should frame them or something, because they are special to me, but like everything else, I haven't gotten around to it.] I don't know what any of my cousins did in Southeast Asia, or what they saw or thought or felt. But I know that the experience helped to define them, changed them, made them the men they are today. I am very proud of them, and I fly my flag today to honor them and their service, not only to this country, but for me.
We are unquestionably fortunate to live in a country which is worth fighting, even dying, for. I am grateful for the sacrifices that have been made so that I can sit in my cozy house this morning and write these inadequate words of gratitude. Having come through this contentious election season, it is, I think, important to be reminded that the freedoms we enjoy to choose our leaders and complain about them afterwards have not come cheaply. The cost has been great, and we owe those who have paid it a debt that can never be repaid.
To those veterans in my own family, and to veterans everywhere, thank you.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Cyberstory.....
Over the last couple of days, I have been reading a thread on my daughter's facebook page that was set off by her writing of a light hearted little note last week. It was her first foray into public note writing, and the outcome has hardly been what she, or anyone really, could have expected. Well over 200 comments later, the debate has raged, and continues to range, far and wide from the original topic, fueled, in part at least, from the college students in her world weighing in with well thought out and pretty interesting opinions.
It has been fascinating for me to see how these former children have become adults; how their thought processes, once so shallow and careless, based on their momentary whims, have deepened and broadened and expanded far beyond anything that would have been imaginable just a few short years ago. I think there are some teachers out there who would be astonished to see what the capabilities of their former students really were, hiding behind the intellectual laziness they exhibited in high school.
My ability to partake vicariously, but from a safe distance, in the lively intellectual debate that is now roiling, is sort of thrilling for me. I get to enjoy the benefits of their knowledge without having to reveal my own rapidly increasing ignorance. Although I am their elder by many years, it seems they are far more well read and educated than I, and their discussion has gone beyond my limited knowledge quite a few times over, at this point. But none the less, I am an interested spectator in the discussion, made possible by a medium that, when I was a college student myself, was still in its infancy, and for which my own generation was the vanguard.
How far we have come in connectedness is easy for me to measure, because when I was in college 25 years ago, I participated in a hands on way in the personalizing of computing on my college campus. My then boyfriend was a key person in bringing personal computers to St. Olaf, and he would occasionally, when time was tight, allow me to help him build the Heathkits to which the school was gradually transforming.
When I was in high school, computing was a time consuming and noisy affair, pursued under the watchful eye of the office staff in my little rural district. I am not certain how we ever got the computer in the first place. My small school was hardly on the cutting edge of recent technological advances, as a general rule. [Don't get me wrong here, it was a good school, and I got a very decent education there. But we were not a frills seeking community, and our school district reflected that.] My impression is that the University of Minnesota had some sort of grant to connect themselves with rural parts of the state via mainframe and modem, but I might be completely off on that.
At any rate, when you wanted to use the computer, you had to go into the Principal's office, where you would, under the strictest supervision, use a modem to get online to the U of M. [This was back in the day when we didn't have unlimited long distance cell phones, and there was the gravest concern that we might misuse the district phone to call, oh, I don't know, Minneapolis or something, I guess. Which was pretty bizarre, really, since most of us didn't know too many people outside of our own town, anyway, and probably anyone we did know that we would have wanted to talk to was in school themselves. But I digress. As usual.]
It was a tangible process back then, not simply clicking an icon for Mozilla or internet explorer, like you do now, but actually having to dial the phone and wait for the pinging sound, then all in a rush connect the receiver via a big modem box. If I think about it, I can still hear the squeaking sound as you pushed the phone receiver down into the rubber cradle that served as the holster for the audio technology that allowed us that precious access.
The procedure, while aggravatingly slow, reminded me each time I went through it that it was something out of the ordinary that I was doing. It was exciting, almost like traveling to another world, because suddenly, you were not just in your little school, but connected with The University, with all those possibilities just waiting to be tapped.
Of course, in reality, the only possibility for us was to play a single game, Oregon Trail. We would go back and forth, printing out on a dot matrix printer attached to the terminal the various options, then we would key in our choices and wait anxiously to see how it played out. I don't know if kids still play Oregon Trail these days, but back then, it was a Big Deal for us, and really a lot of fun. It was a thrill, for me, at least, to think that I was connected to a major university in some small way, and that the resources at their disposal were suddenly also at mine. Never, in a million years, could I have visualized the resources of the entire world available with a click at that point. It was the stuff of science fiction then, James Bond or Maxwell Smart come to life.
Fast forward to college, and suddenly, I was on campus with computer terminals, which were a pretty major breakthrough from my limited perspective, although possibly run of the mill for kids from more wealthy areas. A terminal, for the youth who were not around then, was a monitor and keyboard that were connected via cable to a mainframe computer somewhere else. If memory serves me correctly, and that is a big if, we each had an account of some kind on the mainframe, so we could access and store information on it. However, my memory is sketchy at the best of times, so I could be completely off base there, I'm not sure.
As a side note, we took a class to learn Basic programming, which I am happy to say I did pretty well in, considering the amounts of math, which I'm guessing were pretty limited, exceeded my even more limited ability. I might have considered programming or computer science for a career, except for that math required. Even those who love me will become exasperated upon watching me try to resolve two plus two, so it was not going to be a possibility that I would ever succeed in programming.
But getting back on track, that brings me to building the Heathkit computers, and my then boyfriend. His name was John, and he was employed by whichever department of the school was in charge of computers. Personal computers were in their infancy at that time, mainframes the size of rooms were the norm, and the concept of having a computer that you could keep entirely to yourself, with information stored directly on that machine, was pretty alien still. But the college itself, and especially John, saw the possibilities, and they set out to transform the campus.
They bought the computers as actual kits, which then had to be built from the parts, sort of like building a model car or a model plane. I'm not sure how John wound up with the job of building the computers, although he was a math and physics genius, so I imagine he knew someone who knew someone, and that was how he found his employment.
Throughout the whole building process, for which I was frequently on hand, I personally learned soldering guns have many uses, none of which have anything to do with soldering. I also learned that computer circuit boards are very fragile, and do not appreciate having hot plastic dropped on them anywhere. Just saying....
In the end, if all went well, which it always did when John did the building, but not so much if I had a hand in it, you would wind up with a functional, if extremely bulky and not very high tech personal computer. I was proud to be assigned the job of affixing the various stickers wherever they belonged - apparently, that was the function to which I was best suited, and least costly to the school. I may vaguely recall a conversation in which I was told that I should never be trusted near a soldering iron again, but perhaps I am imagining things?
The Heathkit had a hard drive, of sorts, with about 4K of RAM, which would allow it to boot up and at least get started, but you also had to carry around your 5.25 inch floppy disks everywhere you went. While hard drive failure today is a life shattering crisis, it was no less so then, when your disk got bent or otherwise failed, and you lost your hard work in an instant. Most people learned to make back-ups after one disaster, although many continued to tempt fate, much as they do today, in fact. Some things never change, I guess, and people who tempt fate will always do so, apparently. But if you bent a disk, at least it was only one paper, or perhaps a few, instead of your entire life. Having said that, of course, I haven't backed up either of my computers in a year, so who am I to talk?
As I moved into graduate school, personal computers got smaller, and Apple, who was the dominant brand at that time, (Bill Gates hadn't blasted onto the scene just yet,) primarily because they aggressively marketed to schools, decided to release a pc that was portable. I'm not sure what made them think this was a realistic plan; LCD was still little more than a distant vision, and the monitor was anything but easily moved. However, they produced the Apple IIc, a computer that I used for many years, and which was the very first computer my son, now 23, ever used.
We still have that computer, in fact, in a box in the basement, a relic of a simpler life and time, but one which I can't quite bear to toss away, as if it was a useless piece of trash instead of the life changing machine it became. The color monitor, a serious upgrade back then, is still crystal clear, and better than many monitors available today, I think. I booted it up not too long ago, and was astonished at the clarity and color possible from that little CRT. Naturally, it is incompatible with any computer currently in use, but as I said, I can't bear to part with it, anyway, so there it sits, neglected, if not forgotten.
After many years of dragging my heels, it became apparent to me that our family required a decent computer. Adam was doing homework on it, as his handwriting was completely illegible, and the IIc just wasn't up to the job any longer. The programs and capabilities which were now available were simply too rich to resist, so we joined the modern world and entered into the windows environment.
It wasn't too much after that moment when we joined the world wide web through our dial-up AOL connection, and in that instant, our family, and our world, changed forever. Suddenly, even in that primitive state, we were in instant connection with people across the globe. We could find out information simply by searching, more tediously back then, to be sure, but still available, through our AOL browser. When we upgraded to the desktop which I still use for work, we upgraded our access as well to high speed, and now, we were part of the online superhighway, which opened even greater possibilities for us all.
Which brings me back to the facebook discussion, which I have enjoyed enormously. It is easy to argue the negative points of the internet, just as it is easy to argue the positives. But there is simply no debating that it keeps us connected to people who are not here, and allows us to maintain relationships with people who we may not even really know. It has broadened our horizons, and enlarged our perspectives in a way that time and space formerly prevented, and all in a moment we can converse in real time with people who challenge our beliefs and foster intellectual growth.
The discussion started by my daughter's simple note was continued by her older brother, who thought she needed a helping hand, since as so often happens, some negative criticism was tossed her way by a thoughtless classmate. It is very little different than the old fashioned line, "My brother can beat up your brother," except it is intellectual instead of physical, and at some remove, where it is safer and less threatening.
With over 900 facebook friends to date, most of them from her own school, the others friends of friends, my daughter has more exposure to thoughts and ideas than I had in my entire childhood. In researching her homework, she has access to information from across the globe. She can see pictures from the Hubble telescope that reach parts of the universe we have never seen before, and she can find obscure data about topics that I didn't even know existed.
I have always been a big believer in education. I think knowledge is power, and I think the more exposure you have to other ideas, the more firm your understanding of your own beliefs will be. In the last few days, I have been consistently challenged and amused and entertained by young adults, who only a few years ago would have considered the decision on which popsicle they wanted, to be the most intellectually important answer of their day.
If the next 25 years have the same kind of cyber progress as the last 25 years, I have to wonder what exciting advances the future holds for our children and grandchildren. I can honestly say, sitting in my high school Principal's office, I never imagined for even a moment the possibilities that were waiting just around the corner. I never could have envisioned that I would end each night chatting with my mom on a computer from the comfort and privacy of my own bed while I was 425 miles away from her. But I can imagine that our great-grandparents never dreamed of a world in which they could make a call on a little instrument and talk to someone hundreds or thousands of miles away, either.
The world is in need of dreamers, it seems, people who look past what is possible to what is imaginable. I am excited for the future, as I listen to the people who will create it. I have said it many times before, but the youth of our world energize me. They see the world as a whole, and in full color. I believe their connectedness is both a blessing and a bane, as too much of anything can be bad for you. But at the same time, they are exposed to so many alternative thoughts and opinions and ideas, it forces them to think more critically about their conclusions.
Perhaps every generation is forced to look over their shoulder with a combination of awe and fear. But I think more than anything else, the opportunities that our children will create will be exciting and fun to watch, and will expand our world in ways that we cannot even imagine right now. Just as I have wondered what my own dad, who has been gone for about 35 years, would think if he were to come back today (I think he would be excited to see many of the advancements, especially hand held camcorders,) I wonder what I will say to my grandchildren about the changes I will see in the years to come.
Maybe someday I will be telling them about the olden days, when we used laptops and cell phones to talk with people across the world.
It has been fascinating for me to see how these former children have become adults; how their thought processes, once so shallow and careless, based on their momentary whims, have deepened and broadened and expanded far beyond anything that would have been imaginable just a few short years ago. I think there are some teachers out there who would be astonished to see what the capabilities of their former students really were, hiding behind the intellectual laziness they exhibited in high school.
My ability to partake vicariously, but from a safe distance, in the lively intellectual debate that is now roiling, is sort of thrilling for me. I get to enjoy the benefits of their knowledge without having to reveal my own rapidly increasing ignorance. Although I am their elder by many years, it seems they are far more well read and educated than I, and their discussion has gone beyond my limited knowledge quite a few times over, at this point. But none the less, I am an interested spectator in the discussion, made possible by a medium that, when I was a college student myself, was still in its infancy, and for which my own generation was the vanguard.
How far we have come in connectedness is easy for me to measure, because when I was in college 25 years ago, I participated in a hands on way in the personalizing of computing on my college campus. My then boyfriend was a key person in bringing personal computers to St. Olaf, and he would occasionally, when time was tight, allow me to help him build the Heathkits to which the school was gradually transforming.
When I was in high school, computing was a time consuming and noisy affair, pursued under the watchful eye of the office staff in my little rural district. I am not certain how we ever got the computer in the first place. My small school was hardly on the cutting edge of recent technological advances, as a general rule. [Don't get me wrong here, it was a good school, and I got a very decent education there. But we were not a frills seeking community, and our school district reflected that.] My impression is that the University of Minnesota had some sort of grant to connect themselves with rural parts of the state via mainframe and modem, but I might be completely off on that.
At any rate, when you wanted to use the computer, you had to go into the Principal's office, where you would, under the strictest supervision, use a modem to get online to the U of M. [This was back in the day when we didn't have unlimited long distance cell phones, and there was the gravest concern that we might misuse the district phone to call, oh, I don't know, Minneapolis or something, I guess. Which was pretty bizarre, really, since most of us didn't know too many people outside of our own town, anyway, and probably anyone we did know that we would have wanted to talk to was in school themselves. But I digress. As usual.]
It was a tangible process back then, not simply clicking an icon for Mozilla or internet explorer, like you do now, but actually having to dial the phone and wait for the pinging sound, then all in a rush connect the receiver via a big modem box. If I think about it, I can still hear the squeaking sound as you pushed the phone receiver down into the rubber cradle that served as the holster for the audio technology that allowed us that precious access.
The procedure, while aggravatingly slow, reminded me each time I went through it that it was something out of the ordinary that I was doing. It was exciting, almost like traveling to another world, because suddenly, you were not just in your little school, but connected with The University, with all those possibilities just waiting to be tapped.
Of course, in reality, the only possibility for us was to play a single game, Oregon Trail. We would go back and forth, printing out on a dot matrix printer attached to the terminal the various options, then we would key in our choices and wait anxiously to see how it played out. I don't know if kids still play Oregon Trail these days, but back then, it was a Big Deal for us, and really a lot of fun. It was a thrill, for me, at least, to think that I was connected to a major university in some small way, and that the resources at their disposal were suddenly also at mine. Never, in a million years, could I have visualized the resources of the entire world available with a click at that point. It was the stuff of science fiction then, James Bond or Maxwell Smart come to life.
Fast forward to college, and suddenly, I was on campus with computer terminals, which were a pretty major breakthrough from my limited perspective, although possibly run of the mill for kids from more wealthy areas. A terminal, for the youth who were not around then, was a monitor and keyboard that were connected via cable to a mainframe computer somewhere else. If memory serves me correctly, and that is a big if, we each had an account of some kind on the mainframe, so we could access and store information on it. However, my memory is sketchy at the best of times, so I could be completely off base there, I'm not sure.
As a side note, we took a class to learn Basic programming, which I am happy to say I did pretty well in, considering the amounts of math, which I'm guessing were pretty limited, exceeded my even more limited ability. I might have considered programming or computer science for a career, except for that math required. Even those who love me will become exasperated upon watching me try to resolve two plus two, so it was not going to be a possibility that I would ever succeed in programming.
But getting back on track, that brings me to building the Heathkit computers, and my then boyfriend. His name was John, and he was employed by whichever department of the school was in charge of computers. Personal computers were in their infancy at that time, mainframes the size of rooms were the norm, and the concept of having a computer that you could keep entirely to yourself, with information stored directly on that machine, was pretty alien still. But the college itself, and especially John, saw the possibilities, and they set out to transform the campus.
They bought the computers as actual kits, which then had to be built from the parts, sort of like building a model car or a model plane. I'm not sure how John wound up with the job of building the computers, although he was a math and physics genius, so I imagine he knew someone who knew someone, and that was how he found his employment.
Throughout the whole building process, for which I was frequently on hand, I personally learned soldering guns have many uses, none of which have anything to do with soldering. I also learned that computer circuit boards are very fragile, and do not appreciate having hot plastic dropped on them anywhere. Just saying....
In the end, if all went well, which it always did when John did the building, but not so much if I had a hand in it, you would wind up with a functional, if extremely bulky and not very high tech personal computer. I was proud to be assigned the job of affixing the various stickers wherever they belonged - apparently, that was the function to which I was best suited, and least costly to the school. I may vaguely recall a conversation in which I was told that I should never be trusted near a soldering iron again, but perhaps I am imagining things?
The Heathkit had a hard drive, of sorts, with about 4K of RAM, which would allow it to boot up and at least get started, but you also had to carry around your 5.25 inch floppy disks everywhere you went. While hard drive failure today is a life shattering crisis, it was no less so then, when your disk got bent or otherwise failed, and you lost your hard work in an instant. Most people learned to make back-ups after one disaster, although many continued to tempt fate, much as they do today, in fact. Some things never change, I guess, and people who tempt fate will always do so, apparently. But if you bent a disk, at least it was only one paper, or perhaps a few, instead of your entire life. Having said that, of course, I haven't backed up either of my computers in a year, so who am I to talk?
As I moved into graduate school, personal computers got smaller, and Apple, who was the dominant brand at that time, (Bill Gates hadn't blasted onto the scene just yet,) primarily because they aggressively marketed to schools, decided to release a pc that was portable. I'm not sure what made them think this was a realistic plan; LCD was still little more than a distant vision, and the monitor was anything but easily moved. However, they produced the Apple IIc, a computer that I used for many years, and which was the very first computer my son, now 23, ever used.
We still have that computer, in fact, in a box in the basement, a relic of a simpler life and time, but one which I can't quite bear to toss away, as if it was a useless piece of trash instead of the life changing machine it became. The color monitor, a serious upgrade back then, is still crystal clear, and better than many monitors available today, I think. I booted it up not too long ago, and was astonished at the clarity and color possible from that little CRT. Naturally, it is incompatible with any computer currently in use, but as I said, I can't bear to part with it, anyway, so there it sits, neglected, if not forgotten.
After many years of dragging my heels, it became apparent to me that our family required a decent computer. Adam was doing homework on it, as his handwriting was completely illegible, and the IIc just wasn't up to the job any longer. The programs and capabilities which were now available were simply too rich to resist, so we joined the modern world and entered into the windows environment.
It wasn't too much after that moment when we joined the world wide web through our dial-up AOL connection, and in that instant, our family, and our world, changed forever. Suddenly, even in that primitive state, we were in instant connection with people across the globe. We could find out information simply by searching, more tediously back then, to be sure, but still available, through our AOL browser. When we upgraded to the desktop which I still use for work, we upgraded our access as well to high speed, and now, we were part of the online superhighway, which opened even greater possibilities for us all.
Which brings me back to the facebook discussion, which I have enjoyed enormously. It is easy to argue the negative points of the internet, just as it is easy to argue the positives. But there is simply no debating that it keeps us connected to people who are not here, and allows us to maintain relationships with people who we may not even really know. It has broadened our horizons, and enlarged our perspectives in a way that time and space formerly prevented, and all in a moment we can converse in real time with people who challenge our beliefs and foster intellectual growth.
The discussion started by my daughter's simple note was continued by her older brother, who thought she needed a helping hand, since as so often happens, some negative criticism was tossed her way by a thoughtless classmate. It is very little different than the old fashioned line, "My brother can beat up your brother," except it is intellectual instead of physical, and at some remove, where it is safer and less threatening.
With over 900 facebook friends to date, most of them from her own school, the others friends of friends, my daughter has more exposure to thoughts and ideas than I had in my entire childhood. In researching her homework, she has access to information from across the globe. She can see pictures from the Hubble telescope that reach parts of the universe we have never seen before, and she can find obscure data about topics that I didn't even know existed.
I have always been a big believer in education. I think knowledge is power, and I think the more exposure you have to other ideas, the more firm your understanding of your own beliefs will be. In the last few days, I have been consistently challenged and amused and entertained by young adults, who only a few years ago would have considered the decision on which popsicle they wanted, to be the most intellectually important answer of their day.
If the next 25 years have the same kind of cyber progress as the last 25 years, I have to wonder what exciting advances the future holds for our children and grandchildren. I can honestly say, sitting in my high school Principal's office, I never imagined for even a moment the possibilities that were waiting just around the corner. I never could have envisioned that I would end each night chatting with my mom on a computer from the comfort and privacy of my own bed while I was 425 miles away from her. But I can imagine that our great-grandparents never dreamed of a world in which they could make a call on a little instrument and talk to someone hundreds or thousands of miles away, either.
The world is in need of dreamers, it seems, people who look past what is possible to what is imaginable. I am excited for the future, as I listen to the people who will create it. I have said it many times before, but the youth of our world energize me. They see the world as a whole, and in full color. I believe their connectedness is both a blessing and a bane, as too much of anything can be bad for you. But at the same time, they are exposed to so many alternative thoughts and opinions and ideas, it forces them to think more critically about their conclusions.
Perhaps every generation is forced to look over their shoulder with a combination of awe and fear. But I think more than anything else, the opportunities that our children will create will be exciting and fun to watch, and will expand our world in ways that we cannot even imagine right now. Just as I have wondered what my own dad, who has been gone for about 35 years, would think if he were to come back today (I think he would be excited to see many of the advancements, especially hand held camcorders,) I wonder what I will say to my grandchildren about the changes I will see in the years to come.
Maybe someday I will be telling them about the olden days, when we used laptops and cell phones to talk with people across the world.
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