DISASTER DECISIONS
How often do we allow outside events to influence our choices? And, to what degree?
I hear people saying " I'm not about to let some woolly-faced kook tell me what to do! I'm never gonna be dancin' to a tune played by some one from some unpronounceable place""
Personal independence is a fine quality and it is to be encouraged and commended, but often founded on wishful thinking. I had some pretty firm plans in mind until that Sunday morning when Japanese warplanes hit Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That act - so far away - changed by life entirely and radically so.
Young people today changed from what they were a short time ago by the destruction of the Trade Towers in New York City and others are seeking changes in their lives to resonate to he demands forced upon us all by the Tsunami off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. In my memories, I have seen many such cases in which young people have learned to key their interests and concerns to help meet the needs of some of the v victims.
My maternal Grandmother was a resident of the area of the Johnstown, Pa. Flood in May of 1889. Her stories of the great flood rivaled those of Noah himself. The main thing about such tellings is that they all get around to people helping people sooner or later. Thousands people died in that flood and she used to tell us if the things they did because of the flood experiences. Another such outside event which is in the disaster group was one which which my parents alluded to quite often since it occurred when they were teenagers - a very impressionable time - it seems. It was called The Galveston, Texas Tidal Wave and Flood. It happened in 1900 and resulted in the death of thirty-thousand people. Sea water swept over the island area as much as seven feet above the highest point of elevation. Nothing was left.
I grew up with a big, yellow, cloth-covered book of photographs and drawings about the "Titanic" disaster of April 16, 1912 -
a book which we read until it, literally, fell to pieces, as I recall.
There has been a host of others, too....yes, and even the small, more personal, localized ones influence what we choose to do and how we choose to live before...during and after. Those lessons we learned are essential to our being what and where we are today.
A.L.M. February 6, 2005 [c426wds]
