The Nifty 50

Over Memorial Day weekend I’ll be hitting the half-century mark. Since I’ll be a grandfather before September, the weather was nice and I was enjoying a Texas spring day, I thought back on my journey thus far. It’s been interesting.

I can remember where I was when Martin Luther King and both John and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, Ronald Reagan was shot, and I watched the Challenger shuttle explode – live. I watched Armstrong walk on the moon, Nixon resign, and Cronkite read the news.

TV was 3 channels and some of that “UHF” stuff and then morphed into cable or satellite dish. “Color TV” became commonplace, and now the “Hi Def is coming” articles I read have also come true. Vinyl records became CDs, VHS and Betamax fought it out and the winner lost to DvD and TiVo. I got to see microwave ovens start and of course get better.

This isn’t going to be some sad dissertation on how much better things are now or how things were better in the good ol’ days. The truth is if you look back where you’ve been it might surprise you. Might make you wonder too.

I wonder if anyone in the last 30 years got the same thrill seeing a band or singer on television the way I did, getting to stay up and see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan? I saw the first music video on MTV (yes, they used to play music videos. Really.), and I can’t remember anything being close to that. I can only imagine what someone who was able to see Elvis about 8 years earlier (albeit from the waist up) might say as a comparison.

Sadly I can also remember where I was when Elvis, and John Lennon, and George Harrison died.

I missed having a mid-life crisis. Never got around to having one and now I think it’s too late.

I listened to Chicago play at Pine Knob in 1975, and 20 years later I stood near the same stage as I listened to them again, this time as a paramedic. In effect I went from someone that had no cares to someone that was ready to care for anyone that needed help.

I’ve had to explain to someone that their spouse of 35 years was dead. On other days I extended a marriage. Let’s not kid around here. When someone that was clinically “dead” – no heartbeat – walks up to you at work a few weeks later and shakes your hand to say, “Thank you”, you had a good day.

I’ve delivered babies. Not something I recommend outside of a hospital, by the way.

Do I have a point? Yes.

Life is a tapestry, but sometimes you need to examine the individual threads. Sometimes that is the only way you’re ever going to appreciate just how great your life has really been.