New Decade in a New Millennium....Ready or Not Here it Comes
Like most of us, I've had plenty of time to say goodbye to the passing year - indeed the passing century! We say goodbye to a year full of war worries, foreclosures, bad debts and political upevils. We brace ourselves now for whatever lies ahead. Will the ex-governor of Alaska, and current reality star, Sarah Palin somehow find herself in the political arena for a run at the presidency? Will the plans, hopes and political creativity of our President Obama come to a good and beneficial fruition?
In this unfolding millennium will we find new countries to concern us with world peace? Will there continue to be old dictators to take down and new ones to put up? My head spins at the thought of what is to be.
In the words of President Obama, “None of the challenges we face lend themselves to simple solutions”. His words are very true and it is worrisome.
But whatever lies ahead we are all taking this journey together. "You can't stop change", we hear that phrase often enough. I guess if we hear it in repetition often enough it will somehow lessen the shock of the new, high-tech world we live in. I suppose I feel this way because I was born into a generation connected to the past. My grandparents, like many of America’s ancestors, came to this country during the great immigration.
Like millions of Italian immigrants, they came in search of freedom and a new way of life for their families. Grandma spared no adjectives each time she described the crowded ships that brought them to America. Like most of my generation, I've always felt a connection to our immigrant ancestors and their profound story.
As an Italian American kid who grew up in the 1940s, I sometimes wonder whether I'm getting too old and set in my ways to embrace the oncoming changes that await me. I wonder if I shouldn't just collect my memories and relish them, instead of forging ahead in search of new ones. But, inevitably, I remember my grandparents' and great grandparents’ courage and how they made that brave voyage from Italy to America.
And I remember my grandpa as he worked in his prolific vegetable garden observing the young bean sprouts as they popped up through the soil, the way he pointed out the young seedlings that were destined to grow and the ones that would die. In Italian, he would say to me: "That which does not change and grow dies." Change and growth uplift us and generate life. So it is with this thought that I anticipate the years ahead.
However, there is a part of me that approaches the coming of a modern mechanized world with mixed feelings. My instinct tells me to be cautious in the face of change, especially when it threatens my established traditions. Judging by the many high tech phones and computers now in service, I fear that we are becoming recorded message centers and that eye-to-eye contact during communication is slowly becoming a thing of the past. As an irrepressible traditionalist, I worry that we will become a nation less verbal and more visual.
I hope I'm wrong because I value the orally told story with family and friends listening in rapt attention. Technology is great, but it’s not a substitute for the ingredients of human gestures, the sound of laughter, the feeling of a hug, and that quality of love pored into a generational story.
I've already said good-bye to some of my favorite sights and sounds from the passing century, such as the gentle sound of icy milk bottles clinking together in the early morning hours as the milkman made his rounds; the mysterious mechanics of a colorful Wurlitzer jukebox as it played my selected records (remember those shiny, black vinyl disks with holes in the center?) the smell of coffee percolating in an aluminum coffee pot on a gas stove; the noisy, but familiar click, click, click of our old TV channel tuner, before remote control, when viewers had to get off their big fat sofas to change the channel; the actual "brrrinnng" of telephone bells before the cell phone was invented; and the aroma of yard leaves burning in smoldering bunches, before we became concerned with the ozone layer and ecology.
I worry, as Grandma did, that we may be losing too much of our past too soon. With the advent of microwave cookery, we've already lost some of the enticing kitchen aromas associated with the dinner ritual. Food is prepared quickly and devoid of aroma inside a microwave oven, so there are no mouthwatering flavors simmering on the stove to wet our appetites and few kitchens are still warmed by the whistle of an old-fashioned teakettle.
But, as I've learned from generations past, there's no holding on to things or to people and sometimes we have to let go in order to go on. Each day replaces the one before it and so on. Hopefully, the closer I come to understanding all of this, the more I'll be able to accept the changing world of the 21st century.
Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits. I hope that will not be America’s fate. I think Hal Borland said it best, “Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” Ready or not here comes the new year! Happy New Year to all and to all good luck!
