THE MORE THINGS CHANGE....

As I approach my fifty year high school reunion, I am startled, like so many generations before, how fifty years could pass so quickly.  Spending one's career on a college campus offers the illusion of eternal youth.

But today's college students consider 1968 ancient history.  I remind myself that when I was in college a person celebrating their fiftieth high school reunion would have graduated from high school between 1919 and 1922.  I for sure thought those people were old!

But it is also strange how many topics have remained so consistent over five decades.  While everything around us seems to be changing rapidly in this still relatively new century, in other important ways time moves slowly or seemingly in circles.

As examples I share Kentucky Kernel headlines from fifty year ago, March 11, 1968:

 

This week we celebrated International Women's Day while the Kentucky General Assembly debated medical marijuana and additional restrictions on a woman's right to choose.   Students focused on spring break and the Big Blue Nation obsessed over a player's injury heading into post-season tournament play. The questions about capital punishment remain unresolved.

The past fifty years have witnessed important changes regarding civil rights, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, as well as other much needed changes within our society.  Medical advances have been astounding and technology has dramatically altered the way we live. 

But I wonder if at my high school reunion we will still debate Beatles or Stones, GTO or SS396, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In or The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, In Cold Blood or The Graduate, or might we simply realize that we have grown older in what seems like an instant and embrace our memories and the positive changes that have occurred while recommitting to the changes still needed with inquisitive and open minds?