Speaking of Dying

When I was 18, Death was a distant thing to me. Elders died at intervals. Their passing was more or less expected and the distress was not especially deep for I had no feel of what forever meant, and it certainly was not something associated with my own life. Death was taking a loved one away, not threatening me personally. Danger was thrilling, because Death was not real to me.

Everything was different when I was eighteen than it is today. Very little television, and most of that comedy such as Sid Caesar and Imogene Cocoa, westerns like Wagon Train, or variety shows like Ed Sullivan. We didn't see people being killed nearly as much as now. Certainly in real life we did not hear of the violence that is part of our lives now. It was rare for most people to ever see a dead body besides at funerals. The worst trouble for anyone in my senior class of high school was a girl who got pregnant. A few of my peers smoked cigarettes or drank beer occasionally, but they were a scant minority. We were innocents. Nine year olds today know more than we did at eighteen.....And Death was a distant thing.

The year 2000 was so far in the distance that it never entered our minds. There were no personal computers then, and not that many big, tube-filled mainframes. I do remember talking seriously with friends of how awful it must be to be thirty years old and we wondered if we would even want to live to be "so old". ROTFLMAO. How arrogant we were in our ignorance!

Speaking of Dying ... Page 2

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