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June 29, 2009

Changes in the lifetimes of the class of ‘67

Carl Keith Greene

First, a correction for last week’s column. I referred to Luzon Bay in the Philippines. It should have been Manila Bay. I at least came close. Luzon is the largest of the Philippine Islands.

Monday night I had to do one of the jobs I’ve taken on myself that I dread. It’s not very rewarding, but I feel like I’m doing something special for my high school classmates.

One of my classmates died last week. I missed seeing the obituary. I try to check the Web sites of the local funeral homes often to see who has left this mortal coil, but I guess I was busy with other things last week.

So I missed it. I learned of it Monday night and e-mailed a copy of the obituary to the London High grads that are on my list and posted it on Facebook.

I think the London High class of ‘67 had maybe 92 students. We’ve lost in the past 42 years maybe ten students. I have a list somewhere but can’t find it. I’ll add Larry when I can and have to delete one classmate whom we thought was dead but isn’t.

My generation has experienced some of the most historical moments in the nation. Of course every generation probably feels that way.

But we, as 19- and 20-year-olds saw in grainy black and white on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.

You know, that’s kind of like being a native American and watching the Mayflower dropping anchor at Plymouth and seeing the pioneers come ashore.

We have, though, seen perhaps the greatest movement into the world of intellectual technology. The fact that with one note I can reach perhaps fifty or sixty friends with word that one of our own has died amazes me even now.

Oh, how the world has changed since Flag Day 1949.

Last week I wrote of the marvel of AM radio, how it was once the only way to disseminate information and entertainment to hundreds of thousands of people at once.

Today, there are so many ways to contact and communicate that we are often boggled by which method to use.

So here we are, the class of ‘67, witnesses to modernity.

In our lifetime, the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Thunderbird and the Lexus were invented.

Dippin’ Dots hit the market. Computers came into their glory. Movie houses that play many shows at once have been developed.

Men have walked on the moon and unmanned vehicles have explored Mars.

We’ve gone though modern miracles and we’ve gone through some of the worst periods of this nation.

We’ve witnessed the assassination of a president, a presidential candidate, a leader in the war for equality and the merciless killings of people who were of a different color.

Also in our lifetime, we have seen 19 military incidents in which at least one American soldier died, totalling more than 83,000. And they still die.

But it’s been that way in this nation’s beginning when it wasn’t even a nation.

I suspect that our parents had the hope after World War II ended that we would see no more wars, no more hatred, no more combat.

Seems that they were wrong. I sure wish they had been right.

Carl Keith Greene is a writer for the Times-Tribune. He can be reached at cgreene@thetimestribune.com

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