Happy Birthday Joe

    

   Yesterday I launched into my 76th year. My life has been interesting to myself, but it would appear boring to others so I will write instead about the changes I have seen in my country. When I was born, Hitler had been dead less than two years. All of America's rivals were down. Europe and Japan were wrecked, Russia was reeling, and China was a land of half a billion peasants. America's factories, which had turned out unlimited weapons of war, switched over to consumer goods. The vets went to college, built houses and filled them with those consumer goods.

   Our TV was filled with documentaries about how we had won the war, along with nightmarish films about the holocaust. On holidays the still young veterans marched in their uniforms, or watched from the sidewalk with a trouser leg pinned up. My grandfather taught me to put my hand over my heart when our flag went by.

   The streetcar tracks were paved over and busses took their place. The small patches of woods in our neighborhood were cleared and filled with new homes. Old carriage houses went down and were replaced with homes. The chicken runs of immigrant families disappeared. The cry of the rag man and the rattle of his horse drawn carriage died away forever. The double and triple decker houses endured though and have gained iconic status.

   The church loomed larger then. We were steeped in incense and candle wax. Our teachers rustled in their wimples, their beads clacking against their crucifixes. The devil had gravitas. Now he's retreated to other lands. Pain relief is better now. The doctor is our priest. The churches are more intent on legislation. Some.

   My mother and the mothers of my friends stayed home and cared for their children and their homes. The dads got second jobs and new used cars appeared in front of the houses. The playground was flooded in winter for skating and the sledding hill was covered with snow for weeks. It's grown milder by the coast and kids skate in the arena now and go north to ski. Any local snow melts in a few days.

    When my grandfather sent me to get the morning paper, there were five different papers available. The papers were printed in large buildings downtown. Everything was heavy and solid, telephones, cameras, binoculars. That solidity was a sign of quality. Those things have been reduced and consolidated. My phone fits in my pocket. It takes great pictures, contains detailed maps, and the entire world of literature and entertainment is available on it. My sense of community has widened and thinned.

   When the subway train to downtown passed through the run-down part of the city, Blacks and Asians got on. Their situation has improved a little. We still have miles to go. I only saw Indians in cowboy movies, but they were in their own ghetto at the time. There was love between men and women when I was a kid. There still is, but the dynamics have changed. They are changing still. There was a Cold War when I was young. It's been flaring up and down ever since. Money was scarce back in my youth but it bought a lot. Now money is available on easy terms, but you need a wheelbarrow to haul it away. It's value falls and rises like the tides. 

   I sometimes feel nostalgic for the old days and departed friends, but I have adapted to the new world. It's mostly better. Last weekend there were lots of Saint Patrick's Day parades around the country. In the old days, the parade was always on the 17th. It was a civic holiday in our city so we were out of school anyway. All the holidays were celebrated then on the day they were supposedly celebrating. Now most of the holidays have slid over to Monday to provide a three day weekend. And that's ok.

   We're living in an age of convenience. We expect to get any goods or services promptly and at a reasonable price. We expect to be happy. The pandemic put a damper on our expectations which may create new methods to satisfy our desires. When I was a kid, we worried about vague enemies allied with the devil dropping the atomic bomb on us. We still worry about evil forces working to destroy our way of life. But we have more and better ways to ease our anxiety now.

   As for me, I like to look at the sky and let my imagination, abetted by my phone, carry me beyond the clouds and the blue, across the universe of space and time. When I consider the billions of galaxies out there, I feel insignificant. But when I consider the billions of electrons dancing on a pinhead, I feel just about right. Maybe I'll write my memoirs after all.

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