DON"T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY

            As a teenager in the 1960s, I would sit with my father while he watched The Twentieth Century, a documentary TV show, narrated by Walter Cronkite, that focused on key moments of the preceding decades. In my recollection, there were a lot of episodes about World War II, or as everyone then called it, "The War."  My father, who did not watch much TV, would be riveted.  I realize now that he (born in 1912) was watching the events of his life as history.  

      I thought of this a a while back when Ken Burns' documentary about the Vietnam war began to unfold on television.*  I thought of it again when my husband and I went to see The Post, the Spielberg extravaganza about the Pentagon Papers.  And, before that, there was Selma.  The events of my life now qualify as history.  (Hell, the Beatles are now very ancient history.)

        This takes a bit of getting used to.  

        The first time I was aware that events of my youth had passed into history was the day in 2000 when I took my daughters to the Smithsonian, and we walked through an exhibit about First Ladies.  There was Jackie Kennedy in one of her famous outfits.  Wait.  What?  This is museum fare?  

        
        Of course, I should have realized that Jack and Jackie were now historical figures. Very few people in my workplace had any memory of JFK.  Indeed, when John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999, the young people in my office looked blank - I could see them thinking, why is this a big deal?  They didn't remember him saluting his father's casket.   

         Yes, when I gave it some thought on that day in The Smithsonian, I realized it had been nearly 40 years since Jackie had left the White House.  Still, she and Jack had been the first First Couple I had been really aware of.  

        When we are young, everything is immediate.  We are the world.  A minute later, another generation is stepping forward, and they don't remember - didn't even experience - the events that shaped our lives.  My mother's memories of WWII were as real to her as the lines on the back of her hands, but those memories were no more accessible to me than her mother's memories of WWI were to her.

          Is there a moment when life becomes history?  Is there a magic number of years? 20? 30? 50?  Is 9/11 history?  In a world where the 24/7 news cycle chews up and spits out stories before we have a chance to process them, is yesterday's news history?  

          And if yesterday's news is history, how will future historians sort out what is important and true about this moment in time when anyone (including yours truly) can place anything into the stream of data that passes endlessly before our eyes? Who will determine what was real and what wasn't?  Is a flood of postings any more reliable a guide in piecing together the past than ancient artifacts? I begin to seriously doubt it.  

          Our books and movies and periodicals and postings notwithstanding, all we ever really have is our own experience. (And even that may not be as reliable as we like to think.) So, may we pay attention to what we experience in our lives, and  enjoy and/or fix what we can while we are here, knowing that the light we shine to guide the next generation will fade, and trusting those who follow to pick through, and make the best of, what we leave behind. 

           May their memories be long, their wisdom plentiful, and their history eventful in the most positive possible way. 

         

* I couldn't bring myself to watch the Vietnam documentary.  It was hard enough to live through that time.
       

I WILL FOLLOW YOU: Some Thoughts on the New Student Activists

         In the spring of 2000, I visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall.  It had been 25 years since the end of that war, decades since over 50,000 of my generation and millions of Vietnamese had been killed in that conflict. The passage of time notwithstanding, tears sprang to my eyes as I approached the memorial.  

         When my then 15-year-old, looking worried, asked why I was crying, all I could manage through my tears was, “This is my generation.” I could not then, and still can not, adequately describe what a trauma that war had been for my generation. 

         We went to war or watched our peers go off to fight a war we did not understand. We heard the nightly body counts on the news.  We marched.  We sang protest songs. We wrote letters. And while we protested, the generation before us sent more of the boys of my generation (and boys they largely were) off to fight in this war that, we now know, our leaders believed could not be won. 

         We were young. Very young. We thought we could change the world.  Maybe our protests helped to end the war.  I'd like to think so.

         Why do I bring this up now?

         Because I am watching another, much younger generation take up its fight. After Parkland, something broke loose in these kids who have spent their entire lives with the shadow of school shootings hanging over them. We have failed them, so they must take up the fight for their own safety themselves. 

         Today I went to the high school from which my daughters graduated over a decade ago.  I went to bear witness to a student walkout.  I arrived at 10 a.m., just as a portion of the student body began to leave their classrooms along with students all over the country.  They walked out in remembrance of the students and faculty killed at Parkland.  They stood (mostly) in silence for 17 minutes – one minute for each of those killed at the Florida school.

         Tears came to my eyes as I approached the crowd of students, just as they had 18 years ago in front of the Vietnam War Memorial.  I couldn't stop crying.  I cried for their youth and their bravery and their idealism.  I cried because we have not protected them. I cried for the ways every generation fails the next.  I cried for my frustration with the cowardice of our legislators. I cried for the long, hard fight these kids have ahead of them.  And I cried for the trauma they will re-experience when they visit a future memorial for gun victims. 

         But most of all, I cried with pride.  These kids have given me hope at the end of a long dry spell where hope was hard to come by.  They are passionate.  They are articulate.  And soon they will be voting. 

         So, please, let us join them on March 24 at the March For Our Lives.  Let us show them that they are not alone, that we do not value the rights of gun owners over the right of our children to attend school without fear.  Let us redouble our efforts to get assault weapons out of the hands of civilians.  Let us be there at the moment of turning when meaningful gun reform is enacted by every state.  

         Last month, I submitted this letter to the editor of the New York

Times: 

         “I have a dream that one day all members of Congress will

         refuse to accept donations from the NRA, and that they will

         convene a bipartisan committee to determine within 30 days

         the best ways to prevent future gun deaths.  In my dream,

         both chambers of Congress pass comprehensive gun legislation

         soon after the committee’s report.  In the conclusion to my

         dream, the Justices of the Supreme Court, upon receiving a

         challenge to the new legislation, re-read the Second Amendment

         and come to their collective senses, recognizing that this

         amendment was meant to provide for militias at a time when

         the country did not have a standing army, and that, in any event,

         the militias were meant to be “well-regulated.” [1]

        

         They didn’t print it  -- maybe because I’m no Martin Luther King, Jr. or maybe because they receive over 1000 letters a day.  If I were to write the letter today, it would simply state:  "Thank you.  Thank you to the youth of our nation for raising your voices.  I am so proud of you. I am so sorry we have let you down.”

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[1] The text of the Second Amendment:  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."