Change That Repeats Itself

I ran across another meme on Facebook that allowed me to ignore the half written drafts I have waiting impatiently for me to finish them. 

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From the Meme:

"For a small amount of perspective during these crazy times, imagine you were an American born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.

When you're 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet.

When you're 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills six million. At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish.

At 64 the Vietnam War begins, and it doesn’t end for many years. Four million people die in that conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening.

As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn’t think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.

Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this. In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted. This too, shall pass."

My comment with a small bit of editing:

"My father was born in 1905. He lived the life the meme describes. He spent his adult life in the Army Air Corp and later, as WWll began to wind down, he was the 619th person inducted into the US Air Force that was separated from under the Army's umbrella. He witnessed and participated in much of what went down back in the day. He learned to fly in open cockpit planes and finished his career over 30 years later with a short flight in a F -100 Super Sabre. His generation saw a lot. But then, so does every generation.

Now let's look at the Boomer generation of which I am a member. It has been a tumultuous ride for us also if we chose to pay attention. 

In my lifetime, America has spent almost all of it tied up in useless military conflicts which were not direct threats to our country. I have witnessed what I thought were great strides forward in the struggle to finally have a country of equals where the promise of the Constitution might be more than just empty words. But those strides are now being dismantled and it looks like if I live long enough, I will see us crash in the dust of our own hubris and we will be back in the hole we were in over a hundred years ago."

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It seems the only thing we can count on is Change that repeats itself.

Keep it 'Tween the Ditches ................................

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To find an appropriate tune for this post, I typed in the Google space, "Blues tune about history repeating". The first song to pop up was not a Blues tune. It waas the perfect song; a jazzy tune by a great singer I had forgotten about. 

I first noticed Shirley Bassey for her opening credit song "Goldfinger" in that James Bond movie of the same name. That was in 1964. She recorded the song below in 1997-98. She has had a long, long career. Including this song because it fits is not my main reaason. Shirley deserves her props. Her sixty plus year career and her pipes seem as strong as they were in 1964. Awesome singer.

Here is Shirley Bassey and the Propellor Heads with a jazzy tune, "History Repeating". What a great song. Play it loud.