By Edwin Cooney
I don't do much that's very constructive or informative these days! I try and care for my wife, my two lads living in Northern California nearly 3,000 miles to my west, stay in touch with and care about my best friend who lives in New Jersey, write these musings once a week, attend church services every Sunday, and preside as President of the Syracuse Host Lions Club twice a month, as well as serve as President of the New York State School for the Blind Alumni Association. I don't have a lot of money and thus I don't spend a significant enough amount of it to add or detract from the national economy. However, I do observe, categorize and evaluate events in my head for the purpose of sharing and hopefully stimulating the thoughts of you, my readers.
On Thursday, November 25th, 1999, I sat over pre-Thanksgiving-Day dinner wine at my friend David's house and together we thrashed over the answer to my question: What year was the most historic of the 20th Century? Of course, David immediately asked: Whose history are you talking about? Well, of course, I immediately narrowed the question to focus on America and the western world in general.
As we talked, we narrowed the answer down to five possibilities. The first was 1901, the year the American presidency was modernized by Theodore Roosevelt. Then, there was 1919, the close of World War I, which saw the creation of the League of Nations and its rejection by the U.S. Senate. The year 1933 constituted a new relationship between the people and their government here in the United States. The year 1991 saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the "Cold War." The winner that day was the year I just skipped over chronologically, 1945. That was the year FDR died, the year the United Nations was founded in San Fransisco and, most significant of all, it was our use of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan which ended World War II. That event affected everyone's potential future for better or worse! The power of atomic energy was beyond most of our imaginations.
I offer this story not only because it’s a personal experience, but because it emphasizes the events that make the above five years significant. The years that David and I discussed 21 years ago we now say were years containing sea changes.
As for 2020, hopefully, we've been through the worst of times what with Covid-19 and wildfires in California and Hurricane Laura in Texas and Louisiana. However, the big question is whether these events are sea changes. Sea changes, as I understand them, are occurrences which markedly alter peoples values and behaviors despite previous inclinations or habits. One sea change a year is substantial enough to bring about political, economic and even social chaos. Two sea changes in a single year could be overwhelming to the body politic. After all, how many hurricanes around the Atlantic and through the Gulf of Mexico, how many wildfires throughout the west, does it take to demonstrate that climate change is far from a hoax? The same must be asked about the Covid-19 pandemic?
Because life must go on, we'll adjust to these sea changes. After all, the ability to adjust and thus normalize living conditions amounts to the stuff of which people are made!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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