Reflections

For the past several weeks the History Channel, a cable presentation, has been airing "America - The History of Us." It is documentary look at the history of our great nation from its beginnings.

As I have watched the segments unfold, I can't help but reflect how I have witnessed so much history first hand. And, at times have actually been a part of it. A child of the 1940s I have watched the transition from everyone gathering around the radio to sitting in front of the television; instant communication. From picking up a telephone and asking the operator to connect with a certain number to the mobility of cell phones and satellite communication.

I can recall gas wars when gas stations would vie for customers with gifts and prices as low as 15 cents per gallon. When a Coke was five cents and there were two water fountains each had a sign designating their usage; one said "White Only", the other labeled "Colored."

In school there were routine air raid drills instructing us to crawl under the desk and put our heads between our legs in the event an atomic bomb was dropped. I guess they failed to inform our teachers to also add: "and kiss your ass goodbye."

The world watched with amazement as Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier and became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound in the X-1 on October 14, 1947. Twenty two years later, on July 20th, the men of Apollo 11 were the first to set foot on the moon and most of the world sat transfixed in front of the live broadcast from earth's satellite.

As Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin planted the American flag on the lunar surface other men were slogging through the jungles and highlands in Vietnam trying to bring freedom to another part of the world. In America, its citizens were availing themselves of our freedoms and demanding equality for all. In 1968 movements were evident from San Francisco to Atlanta demonstrating and supporting the right to free speech and ending the Vietnam war to Civil Rights.

I've witnessed the advent of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine to the first open heart surgery. So many medical advances.

I look with great pride at the feats we've accomplished over the past half a century. But I also temper it with hope. Hope that in the years to come advances will find cures and treatments for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and so many others. Hope that literacy will be achieved by all. Hope that one day people will realize no matter the color of their skin all of them bled red blood. We are like it or not brothers and sisters in humanity.

Perhaps, the greatest hope is for peace. That one day we will all smile and accept one another and learn from our differences making them a strength and not a reason for divisiveness.