FRAIDY CAT TIMES By this time you may have forgotten what "Y-2" was all about not too many years ago...six or seven, perhaps. Remember those times?
As with bad dreams you would rather forget most of it but it was a time when many people lived in fear and fully expected disaster to strike all of us!
When we faced the beginning of the new century many people did what Mankind has, apparently, always has done when a new century was about to begin. It sound silly, but records indicate that when a millennium is ahead, people get edgy and can't quite accept the idea that what they have is more-or-less permanent and not subject to sudden withdrawal. They invent all manner of evil which might bring about such catastrophic change.
It is easy enough for us to recall that this was done by "other" people. Other people see us as other people ,however, and many who will not admit it had some set fears about what was going to happen when the world slipped into a new one hundred year sequence of days, weeks, months and years.
Just to "play it safe" many others stock piled essentials such a fuel oil, canned goods to feed home-bound families, gas, oil and extra tires for the cars and trucks, and batteries of all kinds, because a major possibility was that all electric grids were going to go dead at midnight of the last night of the year, or just dim at that moment and gradually fade away. The ocean tides were set to do some strange movements, as well, changing usual old land masses to new configurations. Airport runways would buckle and split and train task would warp wildly.
Silly wasn't it? But serious talk about potential disaster was a part of living for many people during those last months of the dying century."Back fence gossip" dwelt on the dangers facing Mankind even wile we were unaware of such dangers as the terrorist threats which have come our way in reality and for which we could have been preparing.
When the great night arrived we watched fireworks burst in unequaled splendor all around or under from Sydney. We experienced old feelings of exhaust and hangovers as a natural part of such celebrations. Few people seemed to be concerned what had become of the pending disasters which had been forecast.
Right now, today many people are predicting the outcome of our wars and other conflicts. Some - once again "other people" are at the root of such dissent. Many suggested ways to end or "finish-off" our troubles are D.O.A. because they are based on tings which are supposed to take place - "maybe", "perhaps"or "if". Get real. Nothing is going to be perfect. Let's relax and do the best we can with what we have at hand. That which "might be" - may not.
A.L.M. May 8, 2006 [c497wds]
