Some days are Sunny, others are a B*tch

March 3 BCOF History

DAY 3402 March 3, 2022
History: What is your favorite time in history to read or write about? Why? If you could teleport there, would you?

I have always heard it said, "write what you know". Now that I am about to enter my seventies, I read and write a lot about the post World War Two years. I suppose because I want to know how we ended up in the place where we are at today. My bookshelves are full of biographies of the US Presidents, analysis of the wars we have been in, the 1619 project, writings of MLK Jr and Malcolm X. I love reading about resistance movements, stories about strong women that shaped the way for women today, labor movements, the fight for civil rights and different types of religion. I also like reading about changes in the medical field over the years. Right now I am reading “Leadership” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It is excellent. The History Channel recently showed a special from her book on Lincoln that was wonderfully done.

Looking back at my own experience, the 1960’s was such a defining time. The Kennedy Administration gave us such promise with the New Frontier, both the space race with Russia and the civil rights movement, women were beginning to change their thinking about what they wanted of their own dreams. I remember my parents telling me how lucky I was to be born in the 1950’s. The big War was over and there were jobs and opportunities, new “modern” homes with great appliances. Diseases could be cured or prevented that were considered fatal at one time. I had a great childhood where there weren’t school shootings, drugs were much milder and usually found at high school level. Of course we all tried booze and cigarettes like our parents and rebelled with our long hair and short skirts, flags sown on our bell bottoms. Then our world became very ugly with the murders of our leaders and 1968 was a heart breaking year.

If I could teleport I would want to be somewhere in the middle of a protest, marching in Birmingham or on the Freedom rides, working with Cesar Chevez, helping with the ERA movement or working in a lab on cancer research.

I always loved the line from “Grapes of Wrath”. Of course that wasn’t the 1960’s but just like what is happening in Ukraine today. I would have wanted to be involved on the right side of history. There are always the people that have and those that don’t. That book speaks to the mass migration of populations due to climate changes, infrastructure collapse and economics, the refusal of a system to help and indeed the full demonisation of those in transit. The language in the book is beautifully simple and yet says so much about strength, sadness, suffering, perseverance and dignity.

So I end this with Tom Joad speaking to his Ma-

"Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where — wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’ — I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build — why, I’ll be there."