I realize, what a fortunate time, I have been living in after reading Jeff Rubin new book WHY YOUR WORLD IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT SMALLER. So much changed in my generation for the better. Now it seems, many of these things are coming to an end. This book discusses energy in a detailed manner by an expert in the field.
I will explain why I feel very lucky to have been born in 1943.
When I started college in 1961 it cost $97 for tuition and books at a state school in Wisconsin. My room cost around $250 a semester. These facts are important because my family was poor but viewed as average income family during my years of growing up. It is a fact that if you have the ambition to go to college, the opportunity was there for about anyone. My generation of women were probably the last one to think in terms of becoming a teacher, a nurse or working in an office. We all thought it was a natural path that after marriage we would most likely stay home and for a number of years raising our children.
Three major social events during the sixties changed the United States for my generation. The first was the war in Vietnam. The draft affected every neighborhood in American. Families were watching television seeing the war daily in their homes in a places few could find on a map. The movies had made war romantic or heroic but the tragedy of this war was playing daily for us to view, put that notion to death. People were shocked at the killing from the air, seeing children and women mixed in the middle of the fighting and the young faces of our soldiers. Questioning the sense of the politics of the war started to be expressed first on college campuses and then a few brave media people and then a movement started to question the authority of our government. Well, we know the history of this one.
On a parallel track the slow train of recognizing black people as full citizens in the United States was coming to ahead. A few court cases, a new outspoken leader name Martin Luther King and the restless of this nation was in the streets again covered for the first time daily on television for all to see. This movement divided people, tore towns apart and was painful death of an old lifestyle that the South and large Northern cities had known for all the history of our country. It open up discussions for all of us to understand our guiding religious views, how had our church leaders ignored this for centuries? How could they have got this so wrong for so long, was the question.
The third event in the sixties that changed our society was the birth control pill. For the first time it was not the fate of woman to follow the historical path of human race and take nature in its fullest or stay celibate. Woman had the physical freedoms that males had experienced for all of history, being married did not necessarily mean you devoted your life to young members of the family giving up all personal ambitions. Women had choices and had to figure this out.
These events affected all of us in this country and they rapidly changed out society. Living in the richest country in the world with opportunity unknown before for women was not a conscious, big shift. The change happened slowly, personally as each woman figured out her place.
Results are in for me. I had many short careers, all interesting to me. I have traveled 30 years around the world viewing places I was curious to see and or cultures to understand. Tasted food, had conversations with strangers that touched my life, and developed a conviction along the way that guides me was the result. All along being parent to two wonderful children.
After reading this book, I do believe that type of travel will probably not be available for my grandchildren. The cost of energy for jet planes will end it as the book clearly explains. The world will go back the old way that only the leisure class will travel. Other energies will be developed for many of our daily needs but flying is particularly expensive and unique. The book also suggested that we will become local in the manner of my childhood where vacation was spent nearby at a lake or resort. The way it was done, except for the jet flying period, for generations.
The other part that will return to my parents' generation will be the issue of food. Salmon from Alaska or the Atlantic, avocado from California and mango from Chile and blueberries from Maine will be for special occasions. Locally grown food will become the daily diet. People will grow gardens and probably live healthier. Cost of transportation will end cheap food.
One other foot note to the week. Afghanistan has played a key role in the history of the world. Before the fall of empires, that of China, England and Russia, they invaded the far off country. None of the countries ever ruled Afghanistan and all the countries faded from power shortly after. History books are sometimes not read.
I was born at just the right time to explore my world. I am very lucky.
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