We've Seen Some Things

One of my last posts got me to thinking.. and sometimes that's dangerous.

Anyway, since we graduated, it has been 39 years, 8 months, 13 days, or...
2071 weeks... rounded a bit of course
14,503 days
348,072 hours... and I think I've spent most of those sitting at traffic lights
20,884,320 minutes... yep, that's millions
1,253,059,200 seconds... and yep, that's a billion.

Feeling old yet?

Anyway, where I'm going with this is all that we have seen and maybe even taken for granted.

A young kid at work the other day said he thought the lunar landing in '69 was filmed in a studio because we "didn't have the technology" back then. That sort of rankled my fur a touch. But what have we seen?

The biggest things include 9/11 of course, but also the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the war in Vietnam, and a soiree into Granada and Panama, before two Gulf Wars.

There was Nixon then Ford then Carter then Reagan then Bush I then Clinton then Bush II and now Obama.

There were countless earthquakes, tsunamis (or is that tsunamii?) and hurricanes ranging from Andrew to Hugo to Katrina.

The Braves actually won a world series and several league championships, the Saints and Buccaneers actually won Super Bowls, Tennessee won a National Championship in football, Loudon tacked on another couple of State titles and a little lady nobody heard of became women's basketball coach at Tennessee.

Then there was Larry Byrd, Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Dan Marino, Tiger Woods, Dale Earnhardt, Walter Payton, Kareem Abdul Jabar and Shack. Just to name a few.

There was Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Steven Spielberg, Bert and Ernie, The Govonator, Bart Simpson, Dallas, Cheers, CNN, Friends, Survivor and American Idol.

There was Star Wars, Star Trek, the Godfather and the Exorcist. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Ironman and all my comic book heroes. Smokey and Bandit, Indiana Jones and Forrest Gump.

There was the Internet, Google, cable TV, HBO, cellphones, iPods, Ataris, Pong, PacMan, Doom and the Hubble Telescope.

How about NAFTA or PETA or NOW or the SLA .

How about Rap, Grunge, Southern Rock, Punk, Disco or "We are Devo"

Remember the Mustang II or the Yugo or Isuzu or Saturn or Nissan or Infinite or Hummer?

Or look a little closer to home. When we left the high school was the newest and now it's the oldest. There's the new 72, which combined with 75 pretty much takes people around Loudon now. Then who can forget Tellico Village, Staleys, and my favorite -- getting to Lenoir City by going through Piney? And while I'm at it does anyone else but me think it's a nice coincidence that Highway 72 is exit number 72 on I75?

The point is we've seen a lot and done a lot in 40 years, and I just scratched the surface.