The Things We've Seen

     I was watching a local news program this evening, when I heard a story about the very first satellite, that was put into orbit 50 years ago today.  I, incorrectly, guessed that it was Sputnik.  It was not.  It was Telstar, which televised a press conference that included President John F. Kennedy, and was viewed in the (then) Soviet Union.  I decided to do a little research on everything that has happened since the day I was born.

     Dwight D. Eisenhower was president in the year I was born, 1955.  The AFL and CIO unions merged.  UHF television was developed, and Albert Einstein died.  Sugar Ray Robinson won the world boxing championship, and Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California.  Marty, The Seven Year Itch, and The Rose Tattoo topped the box office, while Rock Around the Clock topped the charts along with The Yellow Rose of Texas and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. 

     In the years that followed, polio was eradicated by a vaccine invented by Dr. Albert Sabin, the first transatlantic telephone cable was launched and Elvis Presley was King.  Grace Kelly became royalty, and the interstate highway system was authorized, thus spurring expansion into the suburbs for the first time.  In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (HAH!  I was right!) and the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.  In 1958, national crazes included the "Cha Cha", Barbie dolls and hula hoops. 

     In 1959, Alaska and Hawaii became states, the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed, and Playboy magazine debuted with Marilyn Monroe as the first centerfold.  Wham-O introduced the Frisbee and New York City considered lobbying for statehood.  In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President, black students organized a sit-in at lunch cafeteria in North Carolina and Clark Gable died.

     In 1961, President Kennedy established the Peace Corps, the Berlin Wall was constructed and the Dick Van Dyke Show debuted on television.  In 1962, missile bases were discovered in Cuba, John Glenn becomes the first American to achieve orbit and Marilyn Monroe died. 

     1963 ushered in a very turbulent time when two world leaders died.  John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and Pope John XXIII died in Rome.  Civil war protests continue and Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, riveting the nation.  The artificial heart was first used in surgery, and the first successful liver transplant was performed.  Audio cassettes were first introduced, and songs like Go Away Little Girl, It's My Party and Blue Velvet topped the charts.

     In 1964, we saw the Beatles debut on the Ed Sullivan Show, as did Gilligan's Island and three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi during "Freedom Summer".  The average cost of a house in 1965 was $13,600 and the average income was $6,450.  Gasoline cost 31 cents per gallon and bread was 21 cents per loaf. 

     Succeeding years saw the first successful moon walk, advances in science and medicine, and the birth of the computer and internet.  We have seen runaway inflation, inability to control the government to the point of the government being unable to control itself, and trends in music that went from the energetic to the unthinkable.  We have seen that America is no longer the land of dreams, where immigrants come to begin a new life free of tyranny.  We have seen our civil liberties pushed to the edge and we are starting to see some start to push back.  How long will it be before this country implodes with gasoline upwards of $3.50 per gallon and price gouging?  When did the "freedom" become lost in the Land of the Free?  We were really great once.  I look at this country and see that it is no longer the land that my great-grandparents fought so hard to come to.  It is now a place to run away from.  My family may be next.  When a family can't make it on a very fixed income and all goods and services keep going up, what's a family to do?  I say we go north to a place where we can once again raise our own food on our own land, hunt and fish, and have our own land to do it on.  Where's the "free" in Freedom now? 

     I love my country.  But I am willing to leave it to find something better.  After all, isn't that what my great-grandparents did?  Isn't a better life what we all want?  I, for one, am pondering.

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