January 17, 2025

My father would be 92 years and a day old today

The Washington DC Mall on Inauguration Day

We’re days away from the inauguration of the 47th President of the United States of America and, for the first time since Grover Cleveland, we’re going to have a former president reclaim the office. I’m aware that there are a lot of people unhappy about the way in which the election turned out. The atmosphere seems to be resigned.

What do we really want our country to be in the future? We’ve made decisions that have kicked the proverbial can down the road a ways but the future has a certain inevitability to it. It’s difficult to predict given all the variables that enter into the equation.

What can the individual do to effectively engage with the world and help it stay A) habitable and B) Civil so that people can live out their lives? I do what I can from where I am here in DC. I walk about and take in “the passing show” and I think about how I can be the best version of myself that I can be - recognizing that every cent spent is a vote for the kind of world we are co-creating.

I’ve been participating in this civilization for about 62 years - I mark that milestone on February 4. When I arrived, we’d just skirted the Cuban Missile Crises and before I reached a year old, President Kennedy was assassinated putting us onto the course that we are still on today. Vietnam, the OPEC Oil Embargo, the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis that cost Carter a second term and gave us Ronald Reagan. The New World Order entered into as the Soviet Union fell apart. Hope sprang up for us in the early 1990s. I started to travel in this time - spending a couple of weeks in London in 1993 followed by a summer in Germany in 1994 and 1995.

Completing my studies and carving out my career over the past 30 years has brought me to this moment, here and now. I’m not certain how it will all turn out but I’m interested in watching history unfold. Stay with me and comment is you are so moved!