Woo!
I have a birthday and oddly enough, it's today. Just like it was last year and the year before that...and so it goes back, back, into the dark ages of time. Back to a world that exists only in black and white pictures and broken Super 8 film, sticking and burning in an ancient Kodak projector.
Where I am today is never a place I thought about back in the world I use to live in...that world of Ed Sullivan and Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom, of "Sing Along with Mitch Miller" and Elvis Presley albums, of climbing the old apricot tree in the back yard and digging to China in my mother's garden and playing in the old paneled wagon with Jeff and Bryan pretending we were soldiers trying to avoid capture by the Nazi's during the days of the Vietnam War.
What have I seen in my lifetime? What has happened in the past 50 years...now that I'm 51 and what has shaped the person I've become?
And am I any different that that girl with the long blonde pigtails? Is there a difference between that tomboy of 1968 and the single mom of 2010?
In my lifetime I've lived through the toddler years of Rock & Roll, survived Disco, Punk and Grunge and have questioned the reasoning behind Rap. All in all - it's been a wondrous life of music, though my son swears I was lucky enough to live through the best decades EVER when it comes to Rock. My stories of concerts during the '70's can easily elicit a glazed over expression of envy the likes I never even considered.
I've lived through 4 or 5 wars (assuming one counts Grenada?) with Vietnam still etched into my memory as a horrible vision shown nightly on TV. My prayers always included a line asking God to end the war in Vietnam. Even after it had finally ended, I repeated the line nightly for years because my prayers had simply become a habit. My feelings toward war have not changed in the last 50 years. I have studied all the wars, the history behind them, the strategies, the outcomes, the battles, the bullshit - and I still have the same opinion that I've always had. War is simply two men (always a man) who have issues with each other - usually involving one having something the other wants. They then gather all the people under them and force these people to "go get it" from the other guy. Sometimes, the people have to be told it is in their best interest, that the other guys are evil and will kill us all if we don't stop them. War is stupid. People die for reasons that are usually ridiculous. Families are destroyed because of the will of someone who doesn't care. Even today - (and yes, I understand what has happened in the US in the last 20 years) - we have simply traded the fear/threat of Communism for the fear/treat of Al Qaeda. It's always steeped in truth, but it has grown to ridiculous proportions by being fed through ignorance and fear.
Nope. War has not changed in my lifetime. It has only, like music, evolved.
What else has happened in the last 50 years? Politics? Nope - different people - same Bull Shit.
Society? You would think with all the opportunities to educate ourselves, more people would take advantage of knowledge. But no. That really hasn't changed either. The people who will grow and be valuable to our world will take the initiative and learn. The ones who are lazy and expect the world to cater to them, will sit on their asses and wait for a hand out. It's no different today than it was 50 years ago...though sometimes, in my darker times, I think there are more lazy ass people looking for their piece of assumed heaven. But really? No, I think it's the same just dressed a little differently.
So what has changed?
Nothing.
We are still people. We are still human. We love. We hate. We are afraid of things we don't understand. We find pleasure in the simple things around us. We are hungry. We are rich. We want only what is basic to survive. We want it all. We are no different than we were at the start of 1960. Our society on a whole has changed and evolved with the ebbs of the tide.
I want to be better than that. I want to have grown. But, even as an individual - I know how difficult change can be. I want things to be different, but I didn't do whatever was necessary in my past to make things different. I still wish I was sitting in Bob's car cruising State College, or hanging out at Bill's cool apartment on Lemon Street, or trading shots from a bottle of Jack Daniel's in the Fort at Pioneer Park.
I want to do more dancing in LA with Mark. I want to go see "Animal House" one more time at the Orange Drive-in. I want to see another concert at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach.
I want to be happy and loved in 2011, but I still want to relive 1979 over and over again.
How can I expect the world to change around me for the better - how can I expect people to grow and evolve in this society - when I'm not willing to let go of my past?
What do I want as I move into my 52nd year on this earth?
What I've always wanted. I want Peace. I want Love. I want Happiness.
But most importantly - I want to make this world a better place for my son so that when he is 50, he can look back and see the change I never saw.
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