justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

Remembering Dunkirk, and other benefits from getting old

I faintly remember my mom mentioning Dunkirk during a family conversation when I was a very little boy. The name hasn’t really meant anything to me until just recently, when the trailers from the movie “Dunkirk” starting coming out.

The mention of Dunkirk has also triggered the memory of my family listening to short wave radio reporting on the English military, and their responses to attacks by Germany. Many of my mother’s relatives were living in England and were experiencing the effects of the bombings that often caused them to take shelter in the underground – the subways throughout London. (This period also brings discussion about my Uncle Tom, who was attacked with mustard gas in the First World War. He survived, but died at a relatively young age.)

Writing about aging and getting old often gives short shrifts to the benefits of having lived through special times, experiencing first hand, events of historical significance that can only be imagined or referred to as events to be read about in history books.

I spent most of my youth in Oakland, California, a center of the war effort. Preparing for the possibility of being attacked, maintaining the war effort, and the shameful treatment of the Japanese were topics of ongoing discussion, pervading so many conversations.

All of this didn’t interrupt my youthful routine, except for “black outs,” when lights were turned off at night (except for the flashlight in the bathtub) in case enemy planes might fly over, or the presence of air raid wardens walking the neighborhood, or scrap drives collecting tin foil, rags, rubber bands, and cooking grease for use in war preparation, or the resulting rationing of food and gasoline – all just a part of a little boy growing up.

There is often the temptation to respond to today’s complaints with “When I was your age” comments, which have absolutely no impact on behavior or attitude except with the common retort, “Boy, are you old.”

As I approach my 80s, there are so many changes to reference: I’m so old, I actually paid $6 a night at Motel 6. Gasoline was 25 cents a gallon. No FM radio or TV. Elevator operators were real people. There were only about six brands of cereal and soda pop. Boys on bicycles delivered morning and afternoon newspapers. No ball point pens. Only three brands of sneakers. No private phone lines. And on and on...

One of many articles focusing on “When I was your age” talks about the benefits of “intergenerational knowledge”, a subject near and dear to my heart as I’ve returned to teaching children in our public schools. I hope to enrich the curriculum by having “lived” many of the changes the books talk about – able to provide an invaluable perspective not to be found elsewhere.