[+] Forty Years and Still Waiting

by Revrickm

As a nation, we observe the fortieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22. Can it really be that long ago? I found this to be an occasion for reflection on what life was like forty years ago and what has happened since.

Sandy and I had been married for just over a year and we lived in a small apartment near Berkeley that rented for $75 a month. Gasoline was 30 cents a gallon and ice cream cost 15 or 20 cents for a cone. A year earlier we’d held our breath, along with everyone else, during the Cuban missile crisis, when we came perilously close to nuclear war. A year later we had graduated and returned from a trip to Europe where we visited cities that had been devastated during World War II only twenty years before. Another very different kind of war had already begun in Viet Nam. Forty years later we have world terrorism.

Have you watched a forty-year-old movie or TV program lately? Either can be a startling reminder of just how much the world has changed in a relatively short time. Countless changes have occurred in our daily lives – from the Internet to Starbucks. But, I think there is something else that has changed far more than our technology and social culture. It’s the difference in what we see as the potential for our nation, our world, and our lives.

Think of some of the statements of leaders like Kennedy and King and the ideals they expressed. “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” “I have a dream… that my four children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I fear that today such visions may have fallen victim to cynicism and political expediency.

I wonder if we can learn and grow from reflecting on our lives and values forty years ago and comparing them to what we have come to think of as “normal” in today’s world?

In his “dream” speech, the Rev. Dr. King said that his people lived on an “island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity” and that our leaders claimed there were “insufficient funds” to provide the people with the basic necessities of life. It is to our shame that this insufficiency is much, much worse forty years later. Dr. King’s words can inspire us: “We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation… Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children... In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” May this spirit find a resurgence among us all.