THE ETHOS OF “THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO”


Three and a half decades seems like such a very long time, right up until the time you come to grips with the fact that you’ve lived way longer than that. When LOST was a kid, in the late 60’s – younger than his own are now, many willies were received over the thought of being 40. After all, that would not occur until the year 2000. We’d probably have colonies on Mars then. On the heels of that, my parents would probably be gone by then! Where would I live? And then down the road to a dozen or more oddly paranoid thoughts before moving on to some, more kid-like concept.

But to look backward for a moment, from that late 1960’s vantage point – let’s just call it 1969 – the year after, if you will – thirty-five years ago meant depression era America. Halfway through FDR’s first term. Multi media evangelism meant Father Charles Coughlin. Organized labor was still struggling mightily to come into its own (the UAW sit-down strikes were still a germ of a thought in the Reuther brothers’ brains). Black and White movies – no “Wizard of Oz,” at least not at the theatres. The Cubs were still losers, but hey some things don’t change. In short, 1934 was a permanently sepia-toned image in the mind of a nine year old kid – never really real. Almost like it never really happened, as if five minutes after Mom and Dad dropped the dime on Santa and the Easter bunny, each was going to say “now, Son, about that Depression stuff . . . .” The point is, thirty five years ago in that context might has well have been a century before. It could not be touched, sensed, even fathomed – whether one looked forward or backward.





Flash forward to the last throes of 2005. LOST frequently catches himself not calculating the significance of 35 years ago in thought processes currently. For some reason, there is this mind set that this concept leads inexorably back into “Happy Days” America, if not “Happy Days are Here Again” America. But then it strikes like shower-head cold water on a frosty December morning. Nope. Thirty five years ago was 1970. The Beatles officially broke up.

The first “Earth Day.” Kent State. Sesame Street. The “Manson Family” murder trials. Governor Ronald Reagan. Nixon. LOST’s mother being disgusted by both. All stuff that is in the grasp of personal memory – somewhat fragmented, certainly not perfect, but no less real. Technicolor memories, lived history.

Perhaps the reason for thinking of this stems from the milestone reached by LOST’s mother this week, eighty years. Thirty five years ago, LOST’s Mom was the same age LOST is now. Wow and Ick burst forward almost simultaneously, because 45 seemed soooo old at 10, and now, to stare mortality in the face, consciously thinking about how much time is really left and what to do with it? Nothing like a good dose of Holiday Depression at 3 am on a December weekday morning.





But then maybe it’s not just that. Maybe it’s looking through the eyes of the kids - for whom "35 years ago" is deprived of meaning beyond what can be read in a book or recounted from parents or grandparents. Except for maybe the music. LOST’s kids still crank up the Beatles frequently, and at holiday time the house is just as likely to be filled with the strains of Nat King Cole or Andy Williams as opposed to Manheim Steamroller.

Whatever the rationale, LOST hopes that thirty five years from now that his kids can look back fondly on this time, not just Christmas 2005, but this general point in their lives, and see the time as magical, as a time when the seeds of fulfillment were being nurtured. LOST hopes he and Mrs. LOST are still there, too, with the vast majority of our collective wits still intact. For then as now, ust he couldn’t fathom being 40 at the dawn of a new century, LOST really cannot conceptualize having two sons pushing hard at fifty.