Roger, you might also wonder just how shocked she might be if she were
to see you face to face.
The beauty of email lists is that everyone appears the same age. All
of us, in my mind, are good looking, healthy, active, and around
thirty years of age. Even Richard!
While email has its down side, it does serve to focus us more on
thoughts, rather than peripheral things such as our appearance.
So back to your lady love, are you suggesting that you are no longer
mooning over her?
Carl Jarvis
On 5/14/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Something occurs to me about 1986. I have mentioned on this list my long
lost unrequited love who I finally found on Facebook about three years
ago after twenty-five years. Today happens to be her birthday. I called
her today to wish her birthday tidings and even though I didn't say
anything about it it struck me that she now sounds so old. On this day
back in 1986 she was having her twenty-second birthday and I was tagging
along after her lovesick. Even what with hearing her voice that sounds
so much older now it is really hard for me to imagine her being
fifty-two now. I just wonder how shocked I would be if I could see her.
On 5/14/2016 12:20 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
In 1986, it was a year after my husband's death. A group from the Ethical
Humanist Society was traveling to Kenya for a tour led by the religious
leader and his wife, who had served in Kenya in the Peace Corps. My
friend
from Michigan and I went on that trip. I remember a home for aged women
on
the outskirts of Niarobi where women whose husbands had divorced them or
who
were disabled, were cared for in a windowless building with an open
front,
lots of red dust, and drainage ditches filled with waste, a hospital for
mentally ill people where I was surrounded by Schizophrenic young men who
exhibited the same symptoms that my patients had,at the mental health
clinic
where I worked in 1961, a lioness, surrounded by her babies, lying on a
rock, in the sun, a line of elephants in the distance, a Massai village
with
piles of raw cow dung which would be used to patch the roofs of dwellings
and huge clouds of glies. All of that and more is what blots out the rest
of
1986 for me.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 10:44 AM
To: blind-democracy
Subject: [blind-democracy] scooter dies at 30
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
