Department of 100 Years Ago

Comrade Bob and Comrade Sally hugged each other as they stood among an anxious crowd in their front yard. The freight train sound coming from the ground rumbled softly at first then exploded to shake the houses and the trees and everything around them.

Tears pooled in Bob’s eyes as the two multicolored rockets rose in magnificent sequence from their underground silos in his back yard, a white hot cloud of exhaust boiling and trailing behind them. He had waited his whole life, so long for this moment, overcome by the joy of living to see an event he had dreamed about since he was a kid.

“They are so beautiful!” he exclaimed to Sally. “And it’s just like he said, so damn wonderful to have them pointed somewhere else instead of raining down on us!”

Bob had heard a rumor that the rockets were destined for somewhere on the west coast, perhaps San Francisco or even Salt Lake City, some hot bed location where the instability was too far out of hand. Bob knew it was for the best, the pain would be over quickly and he was confident this effort would quiet things down for a while.

Their future would be brighter, thought Bob.

Still clutching each other, the Comrades silently returned to their homes when the streaking missiles had finally vanished in the distance. Of course, the power was out everywhere and all the phones lines were now down. Just as well, thought Bob, since he had never liked talking on the phone in any case. Plus, nobody would be able to call ahead and warn their enemies or loved ones of the approaching threat. Better that they all sat in the dark for a while and pondered what to do next, he thought.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Comrade Sally snuck up quietly to the window and looked out to the porch.

“Yoo-hoo!” a vaguely familiar voice intruded from outside, “Are you all up yet? Is anyone home?”

“Christ!” whispered Sally, “It’s your mother and your sister. They’re carrying luggage.”

The “Yoooo-hooo!” grew louder and was followed by rude pounding on the front door.

“Might as well let them in,” sighed Bob. “Thing’s could always be worse, ya know...”

… That was a nightmare that I hadn’t had in years. But it all came back to me so easily, so complete and vivid in detail, as if it had never even left me. Oddly, this was not a screamer. It only jolted me awake, giving me a strange shiver of lingering fear that seemed to be stronger in the past but leaving me all the same in that uncomfortable place where I know sleep won’t be any good for the next few nights.

And for a while there it was a bad dream that I truly hoped would never return, a vision that I foolishly believed my children would not suffer. Man, that solitary thought didn’t last very long at all. Looking back, I think now there was no reason for me to trust that it wouldn’t return as clear and obvious as it did.

This frighteningly mad dream is so real yet so incomprehensible. I want to compare it to something but there’s nothing to compare. Empty and pointless, illogical, no known end to the game describes it perfectly.

It’s precisely at these times when I expect someone to ask, “Well, what would they have done 100 years ago?”, as if there is an ancient clue to surviving our own madness hidden somewhere in our dusty closets. It makes me yearn for a special agency or federal Department of 100 Years Ago where I can find the lessons and answers to that question.

But, to my knowledge, no such department exists.

If we do look back to 1906, then we can only be amazed at how short-sighted and silly people were back then. They actually thought the San Francisco earthquake was a big deal with only a few thousand dead and a few hundred million dollars lost. Emerging from that destruction were all sorts of cries about government ineptitude, the lousy treatment of the city’s poorer immigrants and constant public swindling by deceitful contractors.

We have learned so much since then.

Those old timers wouldn’t have known a real national life-threatening disaster if it hit them squarely in the face. They paid little attention to the rapid growth of the Japanese fleet or the political shenanigans engaging Moscow. Those 06’ers simply had no idea what kind of wicked presents they would find in their stockings over the next 60 years or so. They just couldn’t get passed the mud and muck on the west coast.

Surely, as modern people, we’ve advanced beyond that austere stage.

We know now that by 1966, during the heydays of my own childhood nightmares, short-sighted views had quickly expanded and technology was given its modern foundations. Courageous astronauts were sacrificing themselves for a nation’s vision of the future, artificial hearts were being implanted in the breasts of our luckiest citizens and only the occasional H-bomb was temporarily lost in waters off the Spanish coast.

Oh, those were the glory days, boys! Cold war with the USSR, endless battles of attrition in the jungle, nut cases hunkered up on water towers with high powered rifles, ahh, those were all just minor set backs, temporary speed bumps on the road to success. It was a time when we all learned to look ahead for the latest trends, ignore the ugly details in the mud and prepare for the next best thing.

Only 40 years later, things may be a bit different today. Maybe we’ve momentarily misplaced our innate ability to see the good things that lie ahead. We may have lost sight of the thickly layered prize, suddenly overcome by trivial events of the day and unable to see much beyond our own temporary suffering.

I suppose we shouldn’t let all this modern sense of dooming tragedy and disaster get the best of us. These recurring dreams are bothersome but there’s still plenty of life to be lived on this earth. We shouldn’t let some surreal dread prevent us from stepping forward and learning from our past mistakes like we once did. And if the different attitudes and reactions between 1906, 1966 and 2006 tell us anything, it’s that things could always be worse.

Cheers,
Mb