THE RAMBLINGS OF CHUCK WEISS
An Old Guy with a Memory

As I write this, I’m 76 years old. I like to say that I’m an “old guy with a memory.” I lead the Baby-Boom generation having been born in 1947, just two years after the end of World War II.

Our family was the first in the neighborhood to have a TV set, when only two hours of programing a day was broadcast at 8 o’clock at night, well past my bedtime. I remember being allowed to stay up late one night when the first half hour of TV was going to be cartoons!

I was ten years old when the Russians launched Sputnik into orbit, the first man-made satellite. Suddenly, the world changed. Militarily, it meant that bombs could be put into orbit, and much more easily reach their intended targets in case of war. There was no place to hide; no one was safe. The fear was palpable, and the “Red Scare” was born.

I was in high school when President Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas. JFK’s assassination was a coup d’état that hijacked American, and started a decline that continues to this day. (I’ll have more to say about that in a future Ramble.). Everyone was glued to their TV for three days, until after the funeral. We witnessed the first murder ever to be broadcast live, when television cameras captured Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald in the garage of Dallas Police Headquarters.

I was in the Navy during the Viet Nam war when Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. The pride every human being on Earth felt was sensational! There has never been anything since with such a unifying affect on people everywhere.

I remember September 11, 2001 (9/11), and the exact moment when everyone realized that we were under attack by terrorists. In the minutes after the first plane hit the Twin Tower, no one was sure what had happened. Most thought it was a terrible accident, but when the second plane hit there was no room for doubt. We were at war! We lost so much on that day. Not only the 2,977 people who died, but most of our personal freedoms as well. (A topic for another Ramble.)

In tribal and native communities, elders are highly respected as the keepers of society’s traditions, culture and language. They play a vital role, by passing down the wisdom they have garnished over the years.

Today, more than ever, we need the advice of those among us with enough experience to have formed a cultural memory. Most people don’t become aware of worldly matters until their late teens or early twenties, so to have any direct knowledge of history prior to the turn of the century, you would have to have been born sometime before 1980, or there about.

Our attention span, and thus our view of what constitutes history, grows shorter with each passing year. Everything moves so quickly that history has been reduced to what was “in the news” last year, and anything older than a couple of decades is “ancient” history, supposedly nothing that has any relevance for us today. We need to listen to our elders when they speak, not just for their oral history, but for the advice they can give us, as well.

In future Rambles, this “Old Guy with a Memory” will share some of it with you.

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