From newspaper columnists to social media influencers (gag), oodles of people, some een intelligent, have been running “best of the first quarter of the century” lists. Don’t worry, I’m not joining them. You don’t have to stop reading before it turns boring. It may turn boring, but that won t be because if a list of my top ten anythings from the last 25 years.
Frankly, I’m not so sure we’ve completed the first quarter of the century. Go back to kindergarten, earlier for the more precocious of you. When you count, do you start at zero? No, you start at one. No matter how you look at it, we may have gone through 25 years starting with a 2, but only 24 of them were in the twenty-first century. So maybe next year, after we’ve completed the quarter of the century, I might make a list or two.
One thing all these spurious lists have done is make me think what significant progress we have made – not in the last 25 years, but in the last 75. I picked 75 years because that brings us mid-century of the twentieth century. I don’t go back quite that far but I am ld enough to be an American mid-century classic, built in the 50s. Some parts still original.
I grew up during the 60s, a period of civil unrest in a town where everybody was wary of everybody. Other areas had racial issues. We were siloed off by nationalities – Italians, Greeks, Croatians, Irish, and then overlaid racial tensions. But it wasn’t so bad. Since nobody could be top dog, we learned long before the rest of the world we can probably do better by ignoring the obvious difference and concentrate on the things we have in common, like some terrific ethnic dishes. Laugh if you will, but 70 years later, Nationality Days still fill the air with the aroma of everyone’s “old country” kitchens and several interesting fusions.
By the time we got to the 90s, it looked like the rest of the county was starting to embrace the whole melting pot idea.and it was working. And then some 5 foot 9 inch 300 pound spray tanned orange manwhore came along and convinced all the backward hat wearing men and their husky, tattooed women that the world needs more hatred. Weak as they were an still are, the sniffling crowd sucked up to his man girdle and begged for more kool-aid.
But in the meantime, start making those best of lists of the twenty-first century and we can revisit them next year. Maybe we’ll all be in a better mood by then – if we haven’t all died from preventable diseases that they burned all the vaccines for.
One place I haven’t seen anybody write as a candidate for the first place to go when going to places will be all the rage again is church. Church, synagogue, temple, mosque, Stonehenge. Any site of worship. You would think anyone still alive after weeks/months/eons trapped with family, very very close friends, or ourselves and emerging still alive we would want to thank the Almighty. To be honest, as much as I would love to say I’ll be on a beeline for church as soon as the all clear is sounded, I didn’t think of that as the first place I’d go either. Maybe we aren’t as evolved as we think we are.
Something I haven’t done yet this year, besides writing until today, is I also have yet to resolve anything. But hey, that’s the norm for me. I won’t even think about “New Year’s Resolutions” until sometime in March. I may not do anything then either but I will give it a good think. My resolution of years and years ago not to make New Year’s Resolutions in January (which I am proud to say I have kept quite well thank you) did not have the universal impact I was hoping for, encouraging others to likewise temper their plans for self, and often world, improvement as each year begins. I see by delaying my first post of 2020 for 9 days I’ve gotten here too late to see many people who forged ahead with New Year’s Resolutions on January 1 adhering to those grand plans. How can I tell? Well…
Yikes! Only 99 days until Christmas! That must explain why I’m starting to see Christmas displays and decorations for sale in the stores. They don’t have themselves decorated yet. Halloween is the theme for their own decor but there are indeed in store Christmas displays started to crop up. I went to At Home last week and walked by close to a hundred artificial trees just inside the main entrance.
Beyond the idea itself being of little value to normal people, the items they chose would actually make pretty wonderful gifts. Assuming you are gifting to those you care about enough to give thought and consideration to your gift giving, 28 of the 29 items could be tops on anybody’s wish list.
The Real Reality Show Blog 