What Have We Learned?

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Was on a construction job at a local high school.

I found a newspaper - The Buffalo Evening News - from 1953.

Love it!

I read a story about a murder.

One about two politicians (a Democrat & a Republican) taking different sides on a sensitive issue.

There was bad weather on the horizon and farmers were worried about their crops.

There were sales being advertised.

Even the layout of the paper was similar to what we have 66 years later.

There was an application for a drivers license too, and I was surprised that it was one I’d seen before. Driver’s license applications haven’t changed much either.

I kind of really enjoy looking back on regular, every day living before I was here, and I dread missing what I’m gonna’ miss when I’m no longer here.

Which means I gotta’ live my days while I have them.

But reading that old paper was a little depressing.

We haven’t inched forward very much in some areas, but think of all that’s happened since ‘53.

Television, the moon, senseless wars, cell phones, gas shortages, recessions, bad presidents, good presidents, and Clifford arrived!

It was the murder that got to me.

The story was shocking back then.

Now we have three mass shootings in a two-week span.

I don’t think America was greater then.

I certainly feel we shouldn’t be reaching to return to a time when a lot of groups were considered to be less than a white male...

...but some people are looking to go that way!

And I’m not sure what I learned from reading the old paper.

We are supposed to evolve and move further and I’m thinking that someday someone will find a record of what we’ve written down in 2019.

Maybe some guy who likes to read about the past.

In 2085...

...he’ll certainly laugh at the newspaper format...

...but will we change much from where we are now?

I don’t know.

Sad I won’t be around to see it.

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