Castro a Second Tier Headline??--The Times They Are a Changin'

posted by Curt, on February 21, 2008 07:52 pm

This is a day late and probably covered at length by many others, but I thought I'd weigh in. I woke up yesterday and loaded up my news sites as usual. Lo and behold, there, as a secondary/tertiary headline was the news that Castro had stepped down (or chosen not to seek reelection or whatever) as President of Cuba. I thought to myself how times had changed over the last ten and twenty years. This would have been major, week-long news back when I was still in public schools. Even before 9-11 it would have been major news. But yesterday, it was second-tier news.

It all just reinforced to me how the times have changed. This is a much different world than I grew up in, for better and for worse. I actually feel a bit of nostalgia for the days when the end of Castro's rule would have been a major milestone. There's something familiar about that kind of world to me and something non-familiar about the world as it actually was yesterday, when nobody but people in some areas of Miami really cared.

But at the same time this makes me a little nostalgic, it also makes me hopeful. If we can come to a point in this country where the ending of Castro's rule doesn't even make headlines, we can reach a point where even what happens to Osama bin Laden isn't that big of news. Just as the Cold War didn't last forever, neither will the War on Terror. I firmly believe that I will not feel afraid to fly on planes every time I travel for the rest of my life. I have hope that we'll pass the "Clash of Civilizations" just like we passed the great "Clash of Ideology" that many thought would never end.

This second thing this headline reinforced to me was my tendency to always want to live in the past. I hope to have at least 60 more good years of life ahead of me. I suppose that, as time goes by, I'll become more nostalgic and even less excited about the changes. Can you imagine me when I'm 90? I'm not sure I want to. But, as I think about it a little more, perhaps all this has something to do with the gradual turning of hearts of children to fathers. I've thought about that a little lately, and am pretty sure that's the case. Maybe I'll be able to get excited about genealogy work after all!

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