Remembrance

Remembrance
Originally uploaded by thegreatplotnik.

Yesterday was December 7 and Plotnik heard little about the date. How soon we forget. Similarly, two weeks ago November 22 came up without the least fanfare. Plotnik was not alive on December 7, 1941, but he does remember November 22, 1963.

He was a freshman at MSU (Mariosavio University). He had already discovered the beauty of living on one's own, and looking forward saw limitless possibilities, if only he could meet a few women. Walking home from class that sunny afternoon, a roommate screamed out the window that President Kennedy had been shot, but that he'd be OK, and soon that he wouldn't be OK. Much chaos followed. That night Plotnik and a bunch of people he didn't know very well went to the movies, everyone wondering where the country would be the next morning and the next year and what would happen to us all now?

As momumental a day as that was in The Great Plotnik's life, it is strange to say he forgot all about it when his daughter, The Great BeezyWeezy, went off to college in The Big Shmapple in 2001, and five days later woke up to September 11. This event was scarier than November 22, but it left BZWZ with many of the same questions, as she, too, was far away from home for the first extended time, with no family around to help answer the unanswerable: where will the country be the next morning and the next year and what would happen to us all now?

At this writing it is four years out from 9-11-01, and 42 years from 11-22-63, and 64 years from 12-7-41, and what amazes The Great Plotnik is that our country endures desperate times as positively as it does. Key dates define our lives, and they are exciting while they provoke fear, awe-inspiring as they make us question what we stand for. When all the smoke has cleared, we stop sweating the small stuff, like whether The Great DipStick is pure evil or only a dim bulb, and then we roll over and get about our business of trying to make things better.