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LIFE'S OBSERVATIONS

David Mosdal Guest Columnist

You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one

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This is a stanza from John Lennon's song, Imagine, that was written in September of 1971. It was released on October 8th. Earlier that year, Lennon left the United Kingdom for America and never returned. I remember that the sixties were like looking through a barbed wire fence directly into the blast furnace of hell. The world was raw and loud and relentlessly angry. It never let up. Political divisions at home were mirrored in international conflicts that had no solutions other than to dig in deeper, find a sharper stick and keep on blindly swinging. It was Einstein's theory of insanity. For me, that craziness culminated with the shootings at Kent State in the spring of 1970. How could our soldiers shoot and kill our college students in the heart of our nation? I was numb, young and dumb, but I knew I had to grow up or give up. Giving up wasn't an option for the farm boy grandson of immigrants and the son of a WWII Army veteran. And don't forget my mother, who was titanium tough and deceptively charming, like the women of her generation. 1971 was a pivotal year in my life. That's the year I graduated from high school. 1971, though certainly unsettled AND unsettling, gave us an occasional glimpse of daylight through the darkness from which we were emerging. 1971 saw the first email being sent over ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet. Today, with a few key strokes, I can Google and fact-check my musings in this periodical with a great degree of confidence that my memories and reality are still in sync. In 1971, the voting age was lowered to 18 with the 26th amendment to the Constitution. The Senate voted unanimously to approve the action. Was that the last time there was unanimous consent in the Senate? In 1971, Amtrak began operations. Disney World opened in Florida. Nasdaq began trading stocks. Starbucks was founded in Seattle. Texas Instruments and Intel introduce the first microprocessor, the 4004. NPR began broadcasting. Gloria Steinem started publishing Ms Magazine. The debt that completed the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 was finally paid off, 34 years later. 1971 saw the final episode of the Ed Sullivan Show. Trumpeter, Louis Armstrong died. Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev died of a heart attack. Muhammad Ali lost to Joe Frazier, ending a winning streak of 31 fights. DB Cooper hijacked a commercial flight to Seattle. He traded his hostages for $200,000 in cash, ordered the plane to take off again, and then parachuted into the darkness from the Northwest Airlines jet with the cash. He was never heard from again. So here is my theory, whether we look back 50 years or 150 years or 250 years. The Great Experiment that is The United States began and has always been at the precipice where we can soar to new heights or crash on the rocks below. So far, there has always been a new horizon within the grasp of free thinkers who were tailed up by stodgy old conservatives resulting in new industry for masses. The fur trade, cotton, the industrial revolution, the agricultural revolution, the automobile, the Space Race and the personal computer, to name a few, were all New Horizons which fostered phenomenal innovations and economic growth. Government is necessary. Politicians and infants require an inordinate amount of care and feeding. However, they should be treated with some compassion and a firm but fair hand because they will be responsible for us when we are too old to care. We should stop vilifying the “other side” in the United States. “They” are not going to take over and throw “us” into some imaginary dungeon. Iron-fisted autocratic rule requires an individual with a god-like appeal who is willing and able to kill a large enough portion of the citizenry to keep the rest quiet. It happens all over the world. Examples abound in the bottom of unmarked graves. Thankfully, tyrants don't live forever and we don't have one here. I see way more reasons for hope than gloomy resignation. Our strength is in our diversity, not in our sameness. There seems to be a 1971-like glimmer of resolve in the air to do better, to be more honest with ourselves and those around us, and to give renewed meaning to the words when we recite the Pledge “...with liberty and justice for all”. Is it time, once again, to realize that what we think we want is actually neatly wrapped in what we already have? Imagine...

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