©2020 Bill Murphy
I’m blessed. I’m living a long life. I’ve lived thru and seen a lot in my almost 80 years. I’ve lived thru far more wonderful, glorious, and blessed things than I ever deserved to experience. For that I’m thankful. But I’ve also lived thru some troubling times, scary times, even dangerous times.
I lived thru the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged us into World War II. I lived thru the birth of the atomic age, which brought about the construction of fallout shelters everywhere. During that nail-biting time, we collected hoards of can foods and drinking water, in the event that I’d be forced to live underground for a year or more. We practiced drop and cover at school. That was not to avoid a gun-welding student, but to give us some small measure of protection from the blast of an atomic bomb. Yeah, sure.
I lived thru the Cuban Missile Crisis, when two world powers teetered on the very brink of atomic oblivion. Later, somehow, I lived thru the rigors of military basic training. I also lived through the shame of divorce, and the shocking collapse of the company which was my primary employer from 1952 until 2001.
I lived thru the death of my grandparents and parents. But I’ve also lived thru the birth of eight great-grandchildren. (The ninth will be born any day now.)
The most amazing school writing assignment I ever had the opportunity to hear read was on the simple but profound subject entitled DOWN. After a few hilarious references to things like down of a duck, the writer went on with the truth that down is only a relative term. It’s relative to UP. We like up, but we usually cringe at down. The bottom line is, there’s no up without down. Wow!
The corona virus now has us down. Pearl Harbor had us down, as did the Russian bomb. Today, we vacation (up) in Hawaii, and shop for souvenirs on the streets of Moscow. Up came to us. And up will come again.
The day will come that when we hear ‘Corona’ the first thing to pop in our heads will be cold beer, and we’ll say, Yea… I’ll take one!
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Pen In Hand 