No, not an unsung Freedom Fighter, gunned down by the Forces of Evil.
Just a simple cat. Not even the record holder, but the current oldest
living cat. Oops! Scooter died before receiving the honor. But the
point of this pointless ramble is that I got to thinking about what
the world was like, at least here in the good old USA, back in 1986.
Here's the report. Think about your own world back 30 years ago.
Siamese cat, Scooter, was named the world's oldest living cat by the
Guinness Book of World Records and celebrated his 30th birthday on
March 26.
But his owner, Gail Floyd of Mansfield, Texas, said Scooter had died
by the time Guinness conferred its title on April 8.
Veterinarian, Dr Tricia Latimer, said Scooter had lived to the
equivalent of about 136 human years.
Scooter was not Guinness's oldest cat of all time, though. That
distinction belongs to a fellow Texas cat who lived to be 38.
Press Association
******
We can all remember 1986, assuming we're over 35 or so, but it's
difficult to bring up a memory of the world as it was. My boss, Paul
DzieDzic, was the head of a state agency. As director of the
Orientation and training Center, I often rode with Paul from Seattle
to Olympia for management meetings. The State of Washington had not
yet approved the use of cellular phones. Along the I-5 corridor there
were turnouts with public telephones. Paul, always half an hour late
for a meeting, would fly down the freeway, pull into a turnout and
check with his secretary for messages. Another memory. In my OTC
program we had a communications class. Braille was taught separately
from other communications. We still taught students to use the IBM
Selectric, the state of Art among typewriters. Braille was copied via
Therma Form.
We had no computer class. In fact, I was several years away from my
first computer, and I was still using an old manual typewriter. We
had no Voice Mail. My secretary took my calls when I was not in my
office, and read them to me later. I Brailled out what information I
needed.
Other memories included: Space Shuttle Challenger Explodes, Human
Genome Project launched, Sweeping tax reform legislation USA,
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) hits UK Cattle, Iran-Contra
Affair becomes public, Soviet Nuclear reactor at Chernobyl Explosion
causing major Nuclear
Fallout, US bombs Libya
1986 was the first year I took a two week vacation. Cathy and I had
not honeymooned following our marriage in 1982, so we decided that it
was high time to do so. Off to Hawaii we went, along with Cathy's
brother and sister-in-law. I remember hearing the news about the
bombing of Libya. Later that day we received a frantic call from my
oldest daughter who was at our house watching our two younger
children. "Have you heard anything about Libya retaliating? I think
I hear bombs going off." Of course it was a rare thunder storm in the
Olympic mountains.
In 1986, Cathy was director of the Para Legal unit for the Seattle
prosecuting attorney's.
In her office was a room containing huge revolving files containing
all of the units records. They were also using Selectrics.
But in spite of all the specific memories, I still can't really get my
head around the sense of 1986, except to say that it was a very
different world. And I wonder what the year 2046 will look like. Of
course I would be 111 and probably not still hanging around.
Maybe no humans will be around.
Carl Jarvis
