By Daniel Dunaief
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s a shock that it’s May 1st because the new month is always a surprise.
It’s something to talk about, I suppose, and it suggests that time continues to move in the only direction we have ever experienced.
In the realm of things I can’t believe, I’d like to share a few items that range from the trivial to the surreal, without touching most of the third rails in our lives.
For starters, I can’t believe it’s over 24 years since Y2K. Remember all the hullabaloo about how every electronic system we had might fail at the start of the year 2000? People were afraid to fly, imagined that their computers would malfunction and that all manner of automated systems would get something between a computer version of the hiccups and malfunction completely. It seems like only yesterday and yet a world away that we were concerned about the year 2000.
Speaking of 2000, I remember calculating how incredibly old I’d be in 2000. And yet, here we are, 24 years, and counting, later. Gulp!
I don’t remember the first or even the last manned moon landing. I was alive, but not old enough to process any of the remarkable moments in the space program. Now, NASA is planning a manned trip around the moon next year and, in 2026, intends to send astronauts to the moon’s south pole. I’m excited to see people hopping around in lighter gravity while wearing modern spacesuits. I wonder if those outfits will have corporate logos and if the astronauts will send us live feeds from their helmet cams.
On a more personal level, I can’t believe the milestones that the next generation has passed. Our daughter graduated from college, our nephew got married, and our son will vote in the next presidential election for the first time.
Speaking of the presidential election, I can’t believe two candidates who evoke such ire, scorn and disappointment nationally are running yet again. I know we’re slowly marching towards yet another tight race between two angry older men, but I can’t help wondering why neither party and the electorates couldn’t come up with another alternative.
That doesn’t include Robert Kennedy Jr. who isn’t exactly a unifier. Even his siblings have disowned him politically, vowing to vote for President Joe Biden rather than their anti-vax relative.
On a more mundane level, I can’t believe how infrequently I have gone to the movies. From the time we started dating, my wife and I loved the movies. We’d make sure we got to the theater early, waited for overpriced popcorn and, back in the day when I could eat M&M’s and other chocolate candies, would mix candy into the bucket to create a salty-sweet movie snack.
At the end of the movie, we’d get the free popcorn refill and bring it home, where our daughter would pick at it that night or the next morning, listening to a synopsis of the film.
We still watch movies and, as readers of this column may remember, attended “Oppenheimer” in person, but we haven’t planned an evening around a trip to the movies in years.
On the many plus sides of technology, I can’t believe how much easier the logistics of life are with a phone that redirects me when I go the wrong way, that allows me to connect with friends and family all over the world, and that calls anyone in my contact list without my needing to remember a phone number or even dialing or pushing buttons. I still remember the phone numbers of some high school and college friends, not that I’d ever need them, especially since their families have either moved away or given up their land lines.
Oh, and, thanks to my sister-in-law’s efforts to go through older files in my mom’s house, I now have a collection of photos from my high school graduation and prom. I can’t believe I thought that mustache looked good. Then again, that was the age of Tom Selleck and Magnum PI. Much as I might blame the actor for my facial hair, I was more likely following the stylings of my older brother, the family trendsetter.
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