A week of so before Christmas I passed one of the historical markers in the city of Grand Rapids. Pausing to look at the dates and description, and thinking of the many Christmases that have passed since my earliest memories, I began to reflect on the social changes, events, and overall course of history I have lived to see so far. This is not meant to be a short version of TIME Magazine “year in review” or something from the pages of an encyclopedia that offers crystal clear encapsulations of 10-year increments in the march of years. What I have in mind is much, much more subjective; something akin to the form of writing that gained popularity in the 1980s Japan: Jibushi (自分史) or first-person telling of history. Think Forrest Gump (without the famous people) in which some of the big national and international developments serve as landmarks to recollections as seen in the eyes of one person and some of the friends and family nearest.
The things that seem important to remember and know of each decade depend on one’s age and life situation, of course, so the following clusters of developments and significant people, places, and things are truly impressionistic. For the sake of brevity, the parts that pertain to personal experiences are left out to make room for the popular culture and public discourse features instead. Nota bene that I write as my 6th decade is nearing completion. Free-association means the elements offered have no particular order.
1960s: (kindergarten to early elementary school) our car had ashtrays and no seatbelts (in the back seat, anyway). Black and white TV, TV dinners, potluck suppers at church, summer family reunion, annual broadcast of Wizard of Oz, Peanuts Christmas Special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas; TV variety shows (comedy, music performances), NASA launches of the Apollo program including moon walk, AM radio stations on the car, drive-in movie & fast food chains, alewives (invasive herring species overrunning the Great Lakes) dying on the beaches, summer camp. Airlines with linen, cutlery, crockery, dressing up when traveling.
1970s: (upper elementary to high school graduation) station wagon plus subcompact commuter car (all with seat belts), newspaper delivery boy (headlines: Vietnam War ending, Elvis dies, opening up diplomatic ties with China, President Nixon resigns after Watergate scandal), national highway speed limit set to 55 mph to ease the petroleum costs and availability (Oil Shock), Space Shuttle invention, VHS tapes and first hints of cable service & CD music in place of vinyl, FM radio displacing many AM services, drivers education en mass during summer vacation taught by various high school teachers doing summer jobs. Diet fads came one after another, diet drinks and decaf coffee became widespread. Tennis, golf, skiing (both nordic and alpine), and jogging attracted many participants. Invention of Walkman cassette and/or radio.
1980s: (college and early career) typewriter room competes with first computer labs on campus (5 1/4" floppy disks compete with 3 1/2" diskettes), optical laser disks lose ground to first cd-rom and then dvd recording media, along with cd-players and dvd-players. Assassination of John Lennon, attempt on President Reagan, space shuttle Challenger explosion, campus exhibitions of bashing compact cars made in Japan, ending of Cold War (Berlin Wall removed; final days of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).
1990s: (marriage and small children) AYSO youth soccer, mountain bikes, roller blades for all ages, bowling passes its heyday of 1950s-70s. Civil wars and human rights abuses, child soldiers, famines, terrorism, rising tide of drugs to abuse and the connected crimes, War on Drugs (overseas surveillance, cooperation, interdiction), higher highway speed limits, discount air travel and bigger scale of travels from and to more places, expansion of resorts catering to mass travel by jet and by ship. Mass incarceration (zero tolerance, “3 strikes” rule, mandatory sentencing duration). First expansion of Internet (dial-up modem services) and mass-marketing of 401(k) mutual fund investing services. Early mobile phone services. Video games audiences and creators become well-established, eclipsing legacy arcade pinball and electronic games. Legalized gambling becomes widely established (mainly in connection to Native American jurisdictions). AIDS and its research become prominent subjects that affect many nations and individuals. “Beanie babies” and “Cabbage Patch Kids,” Harry Potter book (and later movie) series. End of European currencies as Euro takes the role of common currency in the member states of the European Union. Y2K warnings about computer 2-digit year encoding causing disruption to basic services (water supply, electricity distribution, traffic signals, ATM machines). President Clinton’s economic prosperity. Congressman Gingrich & co. close down the federal government. Epidemic of gun violence (Columbine High School example).
2000s: (school-age children eventually graduating from high school) Attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, followed by invasion of Afghanistan and later Iraq. Drone weapons for surveillance and attack become well established. The S.U.V. takes over more and more of the sedan and station wagon market, pandemics (2003 and 2009, for instance). Widening uses for GPS and other satellite-sourced data in consumer-level products and services. Explosion in cellphone interest, ownership, standard and premium services, including advent of iPhone/pod/pad. Great Recession and home mortgage disaster. Digital camera markets displace film photography for amateurs and professionals in concert with online publishing of personal and organizational forms of communication by blog, website, social media services, bulletin board, listserv, and so on. Cellphones equipped with digital camera to offer both functions begin to attract more and more buyers, even as quality of still and video imagery improves. Mainline churches begin to loose congregations as older people die and younger ones spend weekend hours online, with children’s activities, and engaging in personal recreation outdoors or indoors. Instances skyrocket of (childhood) asthma, ADD and ADHD, as well as many forms taken on the Autism Spectrum. Epidemic of prescription anti-depressants among women particularly, but in all of the population generally, too. Invasive species multiply with increasing volume of ship ballast water discharged, shipping containers rapidly passed to and fro, and jet cargo transport.
2010s: (children to college and first jobs, aging parent care, personal work displacement) Presidents Obama (2 terms — prominent USA role in world events), Trump (1 term — muted USA role; absence from world leadership). Economic rebound after Great Recession of 2008. China’s GDP surpasses Japan’s to move to next-biggest after USA. European Union grows more coherent and coordinated in world events leadership. Russia invades Ukraine and countenances cyber-warfare by criminals and government trained forces to undermine USA public discourse online via social media. FAGA (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple) dominance of public spaces for commerce and communication by individuals, corporations, non-profits organizations, and governments. Legal actions against these and similarly prominent social media and e-commerce infrastructure. General Data Protection Regulation ratified for EU countries to replace 1998 GDPA (…Protection Act). Britain Exit (BREXIT) from the European Union, based partly on Russian manipulated public discourse, during summer 2016 election finally takes effect as the decade ends. BRIC countries attract much scholarly, commerce and financial investing, legal, and governmental attention (Brazil, Russia, India, China) as they rapidly gain prominence in world events. Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic overshadows world economy, politics, travel, communication, healthcare, and so on, due to lack of coordinated leadership in USA and other countries, too.
This impressionistic recounting of topics, experiences, and inventions that affected daily life and career possibilities is not representative of the things that were important in everyone’s version of life. But many who have lived in these times and places will be able to acknowledge them, although maybe not with the same significance attached to them. Still, the exercise of remembering back over the decades some of the things that have remained the same (geography and geology of places visited and lived in, options for communicating long or short distance, healthcare and environmental changes, leisure and recreation developments, and so on) and the things now gone (some sadly missed like slow-paced weekends, others gone with good riddance like widespread smoking) is worth undertaking. Seeing this collection of the parts making up a life not only stretches the mind into a larger perspective, but it also shows the compare/contrast contours, and it expresses a sort of trail of breadcrumbs to see how we have traveled from then to now. Not a bad way to spend an hour of this life.
