43. DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE WHEN I WAS BORN.

In 1942, the planet was a different place.

There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo. Or Internet, for that matter.

In 1942, the year of my birth, the top selling movie was Bambi. Folks in throngs buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster. Magnificent.

Remember, that was before there were DVDs. Heck, even before there was VHS. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema hall, and not downloading them online as you all do now. Imagine the packed seats usually two- in- one souls glued to more love making than seeing movies, the sly laughter now and then, crushing the ******, the sexual excitement, the novelty. In addition, mostly all of that without 3D computer effects.

In the year 1942, the time when I arrived on this earth, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices as you are used to now. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel. Oh, that is many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it?

In 1942... The United States and Philippines troops fight the Battle of Bataan. Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's First World War II flying ace. The first undersea oil pipeline was tested in Operation Pluto. Aviators from the USS Enterprise sank the Japanese battleship Hiei in the Battle of Guadalcanal. The Grand Coulee Dam was finished in the Columbia River. British commandos conducted Operation Frankton, a raid on shipping in Bordeaux harbor. Gasoline rationing began in the United States.

That was the  strange world  I  was born into. Since then, you and others have changed it.

But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?

The 1940s were indeed a special decade. World War II continued, affecting people in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. The post war world encouraged decolonization, new states and governments emerged, while others declared independence, often not without bloodshed. The dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published, picturing a totalitarian Big Brother regime controllings its citizens. The NATO gets established. Iceland declares independence Denmark. Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party is victorious in the Chinese Civil War. Mathematics sees the invention of cryptography. Ballistic missiles are created.

Do you want to know the movie that was all the rage when  I  was 15?Jailhouse Rock. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when you were 15? Maybe it was That'll Be the Day by The Crickets. Were you in love? Who were you in love with, do you remember?

In 1942, 15 years earlier, a long time ago, the year when I was born, the song Chattanooga Choo Choo by Glenn Miller topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.

Pardon me, boy
Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?
Track twenty-nine
Boy, you can gimme a shine
I can afford
To board a Chattanooga choo choo
I've got my fare
And just a trifle to spare
There's a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid.

When you were 9, the movie The Tales of Hoffmann was playing. When you were 8, there was Treasure Island.

Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading towards? The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1942. Do you know what was invented in the year I was born? The Bazooka Rocket Gun. The Nuclear Reactor. The Undersea Oil Pipeline.

Heywood was a daddy in 1942
He couldn't read or make his letters
He said, "Boy, I hope you don't do like I did"
And that was my dad he was talking to
That's from the song Between A Father And A Son by Jace Everett.

In 1942, a new character entered the world of comic books: Peter Pete Junior. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In the real world, in 1942, Calvin Klein was born. And Muhammed Ali. Stephen Hawking, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life. 
It's 2013.

The world is a different place.

Very very different indeed!