To Live in One Life

I have been meaning to mention the passing of Henry Allingham for quite some time now. He was the oldest living man until July 19, 2009. He was born in 1896. His life was immense and it was chocked full of stuff that made Schwarzenegger look like Snoopy. But my post is not necessarily about his life, per se. I am not writing a biography of his life, but more of what he saw through his eyes. History made, books published, and technology expanded. Taking from 1896 to 2009 leaves a lot to be seen. I mean the man was 103 when the internet was (and still is) in a very large upswing, he was 80 when having a home computer was on an upswing.

In his birth year of 1896, X-rays have been just discovered. Also, Utah was admitted as the 45th State, and Queen Victoria surpassed King George III as the longest serving monarch in British history.

The man saw both World Wars, the Great Depression, and a slew of other profound historical earmarks.

Just on the fact of his longevity, I decided that in my meager 26 years, what have I seen thus far in my life.

I mean, computers were on the upswing, but no global internet ( and I mean, as it is now, not the internal networks and the infancy of the world wide web). Cellphones existed but the infamous "brick" was $4,995 and it was almost $2/min. Now, children have them.

If you wanted a convenient set of your well-liked musicians, there was no iPod, you had to use either a dual cassette tape deck or record it off the radio (and of course, the DJ would talk the first and/or last 15 seconds of the song).

Also, movies were on VHS (Betamax as well, but VHS won that war)... no one could fathom movies on a CD. You could count Laserdiscs, but those things were twice the size of dinner plates.

Televisions still used Cathode Ray Tubes, while now we have LCD/Plasma/LED televisions that are 4 inches thick. And in a similar case, computers went from taking a large portion of a desk, to fitting on something 20 inches long. Also, a 5 MB hard drive in the 80s was near $5,000, now we can buy a 30 GB iPod for $250 or a 360 GB computer for $500.

But, I am not going to talk about technologies and their ever shrinking outercases with far expanding inner works. In 26 years, the world has changed a lot.

HIV/AIDS came to light in the late 70s/early 80s. It was considered a death sentence (which to some it still is), but it has been researched extensively, and while there is no cure, it has become very treatable. That is not to say people do not die from AIDS in this day, I am simply stating that the advancement of research in the virus, has prolonged life to those that are afflicted.

My eyes have witnessed, the Challenger Disaster, the Berlin Wall Collapsing, and Collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent ending of the Cold War. Madeleine Albright became the first female Secretary of State and Barack Obama become the first African-American president.

Since my birth, we have had conflicts in Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Iraq (2 wars, but we did have a few inspectors and bombings), and Afghanistan (I could say twice as well considering we were helping out the Mujaheddin in the 80s).

We have seen our tragedies as well. The Oklahoma City Bombing, The Khobar Towers Bombings, Embassy Bombings in Africa, Columbine, and the most tragic 9/11.

I have seen enormous economic growth and enormous economic trouble.

Now, this list is not all inclusive and it is not meant to be. I ask you all to look back and see what your eyes have seen since your birth to now. Try to have something not on this list.

There is really no big point in this post other than being in complete awe of the history of everyday. One day when we are on our last licks, I know I will be humbled by the fact of all what I was witness to on this planet.