Quick Take: 73 Years On
Looking backward on my birthday
Of course I have no memory of the things I saw during the first three or four years of my life. I think that I remember the day I turned four, and from that point forward my personal picture of the past begins to expand and gain detail. My first sustained childhood memories are of the polio that struck me down at the age of six. I was extraordinarily lucky to make a full recovery, which many did not, and even now it’s a rare day when the thought of that fortunate escape does not cross my mind.
Neither in the large nor personally have things always turned out as I expected when contemplating the future as a young man. In 1968 Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey forecast a permanent human presence on the Moon; instead we got 9/11. When I was a kid World War II loomed large in the national consciousness, and I recall asking my parents how they felt when they heard that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. On September 11, 2001, I found out.
My father’s example turned me into a science fiction fan—which, you might think, would have immunized me against future shock. But no: SF’s record of accurate prophecy has been spotty at best. I’m thinking here of the genre’s Golden Age and Silver Age writers: Asimov, Heinlein, Kornbluth, Bester, et al. No matter, though—the short stories and novels of that era include countless gems, among them Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit,” Kornbluth’s “The Little Black Bag,” and Heinlein’s “If This Goes On—” the latter a novella about America under the heel of a religious dictatorship that puts The Handmaid’s Tale to shame.
Of course, some of the things that came my way were expected, such as military service. When I graduated from high school in 1967 there was this thing called the draft, and though it was possible to escape its clutches I didn’t really try. On the other hand, I never expected the Army to become a career. As things turned out, though, I served for twenty-eight years: nine on active duty and nineteen as a reservist. The Army was a big part of my life and probably I shouldn’t have been surprised when my daughter Alex followed in my footsteps, enlisting after high school and serving as an MP, including a year in Afghanistan.
Memory becomes more and more crowded as one ages. My wife Jackie and I have been married for thirty-six years, and the richness of that story would challenge the talents of a Tolstoy. Then there are the countless books I’ve read, which have so enriched my life. After retiring from my final civilian job in 2011, I took to writing fiction. Nearly fifty short stories later I believe I’ve acquired some slight understanding of the work that went into the volumes that crowd the shelves of my library.
Much of the brick-and-mortar portion of my personal past has been bulldozed or put to other uses: Immaculate Conception Parish and Grade School, Coyle High School (both in my hometown, Taunton, Massachusetts) defunct bookstores and restaurants, etc. And year by year, more of the people l’ve known and sometimes loved have passed beyond: my parents, aunts and uncles, one brother and two cousins, the friend of my life, others. But as William Faulkner said, the past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past. I see the truth of this whenever I return to my hometown. Taunton is a palimpsest; there, the past is present wherever I look.
These reflections perhaps seem random and I admit they are. I’ve simply recorded some of the thoughts that came to mind as I glanced back over my life. And I must say on the whole it’s been a good life, for I was fortunate in the circumstance of my birth. For a long time I took that good fortune for granted. Today, seventy-three years on, I know better.
Happy Birthday. May you have 73 more.