Everyone who knows me knows I am a history nerd. The entire discipline of history and all its auxiliary sciences, such as archeology, social studies, civics — even crime scene investigation, which is basically discovering the history of a crime — have always interested me. I recently read a book, titled “Looking Back: Boomers Remember History from the ‘40s to the Present,” which consists of essays and poems written by Baby Boomers, compiled by Kay Kennedy. It was very interesting to read other perspectives on events that occurred during my lifetime and, even, to have a couple of “Oh, yeah, I remember that” moments. But, what struck me most about the book was Ms. Kennedy’s explanation for compiling these essays. She was a student at Little Rock Central High School during the integration crisis when federal troops had to occupy the campus to ensure the safety of nine black students who attended that first year of integration. Can you imagine explaining that time and experience to school-aged children today? Yet, it is a hugely significant event that needs to be remembered, not just by Ms. Kennedy, but by everyone.
She also expressed the same feeling I have always had regarding why most people roll their eyes and consider history a snooze fest. It’s unfortunate that the only way teachers can gauge the amount of knowledge actually being absorbed by students is by asking them to associate and recite dates with events. Like me, she felt it would have been so much better if schools had approached the teaching of history in the same way the ancients, and even generations before the advent of mass media, taught it to their descendants… by story telling.
Since the beginning of time, long before writing became a part of the human evolution, story telling was practiced by the elders of tribes and communities. It was how the younger generations learned how to hunt, where to hunt, where water could be found in the dry season, who was enemy or friend, what crop would grow when. It was illustrated by pictographs in ancient caves and shared around fires in the evening. History was essential knowledge and was necessary for survival. It is my belief it still is. That’s when it hit me… we, the baby boomers, are now the story tellers. Just as we learned that the story of how America came to be wasn't exactly the way it was taught to us in school, we need to make sure our descendants know, if not the truth, at least the reality of our history.
I have always felt anyone who had a strong sense of nostalgia for the 50s, 60s and 70s could not have lived through those years. Yes, great technological advances were made, social injustices brought to light and corrupt politics revealed… all of which were good things. But, there was much, much ugliness, as well. And, while our generation might have raised the bar in terms of social awareness — and healthy skepticism regarding what was being shoved in our faces under the guise of truth, justice and the American way — it is our duty to also reveal how we had to fight for racial and gender rights, how we struggled against an unjust war and why we felt it was necessary to bring down a presidency. We need to explain how our attitudes reflected the fear that, at any moment, we could all be annihilated with the push of a button; that a community could erupt with fire and riots over racial disparities; that National Guardsmen would feel the need to use lethal force against unarmed college students; that daily we heard about the numbers of young men, still teenagers, dying in a jungle thousands of miles from home, while fighting against an enemy with which they had no quarrel; that we felt the need to live for the moment by indulging in drugs and sex, because we honestly felt there were very few tomorrows left to us. It was an era of horrific violence — Manson, Speck, Whitman — and tragic assassinations. As ugly as they are, those stories are just as important as the ones about Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, Woodstock and the invention of pocket calculators. And, it is up to us to make sure future generations know about these events, because I am seeing examples of relevancy today. We don’t want our children and grandchildren to go through the same horrors we did. And, perhaps, sharing those experiences will mean nothing to them but, what if it did? We certainly won’t know by keeping them to ourselves.
Why is history important? Why is any past experience important? If you didn’t fall down, you wouldn’t learn how to achieve balance and move forward. If you didn’t get a bad grade on your performance, you wouldn’t have learned the importance of practicing to achieve excellence. If you didn’t lose occasionally, you wouldn’t learn how to win or, even, how to recognize success. Do you realize our grandchildren have experienced very little of life without the threat of global terrorism? That’s sad. If you are always engaged in conflict and war, how can you know peace?
Life’s lessons aren’t just personal… they are historical. We’ve always learned from our ancestors, from their failures as much as their successes. It is the very reason the human species has survived because, God knows, we have done, and continue to do, many things that could lead to its destruction. We need to share our experiences, not in a way that a staid history book would recount it, but as our ancient ancestors did... by story telling. I believe it is the only way the experience can become real and alive. Besides, if it's just some boring subject to sleep through in school, why did we even bother?
