A Day in the Life

Today is my birthday.

February 27th - I should say today is our birthday - we were born thirty-six years ago in the large metropolis of Blue Earth, Minnesota. Ryan, Vikki and I were born three days late; my sister, the largest, tipping the scales at 6 1/2 pounds and Ryan and I managing a mere 4 1/2. Imagine that - if you will - fifteen pounds of kids in one belly. It all seemed rather large until I saw the mortifying picture of the mother who was pregnant with septuplets. Her belly looked like a gasoline tanker; I had to resist my gag reflex. I did always tell Christine that she looked beautiful when she was pregnant, though.

As I reflect back on this life of mine, I'm trying to ponder what has changed most since the 1970's. Many would say it's the music - digitally compressed files packed with digitally enhanced voices paired with digitally enhanced videos; it all seems so fake now. Gone are the disco kings and queens who made us (perhaps I'll speak for myself), me, want to shake my groove thing, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although by the time the disco was closing shop, I was all of five years old and I didn't even know what a groove thing was.

Some might say that the biggest change is in how information is passed. I am just old enough to remember when there was an actual dial on the phone and it took approximately a minute to call my friends, especially if they had a lot of zeroes or nines in their phone numbers. The phones were connected to the wall by a chord - there was a large fascination for me to curl the cord around my finger as I talked on the phone. In my home town of Rake, we didn't even need to dial the first three digits; since the town was so small, we only had to dial four numbers. The computer has changed the world, I know. All that information at our fingertips. I can type in a word on Google and have billions of hits in less than a second. I remember in high school writing papers and having to finger my way through the encyclopedia to look up the gestational period for the hoary marmot (it took me most of one study period). I also distinctly remember when there were only three channels to be had on the television. Perhaps because we lived in a rather remote section of Iowa, and the airwaves were a bit thinner (that's my assumption), we could only get PBS and two CBS channels. People always talk about the Cosby Show, but I have no recollection because the NBC station was too far away. My television experience from the younger years bounced back and forth between Dukes of Hazard and Love Boat. Also the early morning Saturday cartoon experience watching "Cartoon Olympics" and "Superfriends." Now the cartoons are for mature audiences. What's happening in the wild world of sports.

Speaking of sports, they've changed a bit too. Instead of athletes making a decent living, many of them earn (I use that term very lightly) more than the GNP of many small countries. I just found out this morning that Manny Ramirez turned down 45 million dollars for two years because he feels that he would be underpaid. Everything about that situation makes me want to scream and boycott any type of baseball for the next fifteen years. But, I won't. I am addicted to baseball and I will only inwardly scream and then hope the guilt goes away while I watch the Mets blow another September lead. Our sports addiction is fed by the media. For twenty-five years we have had ESPN - imagine that, one whole channel dedicated to just talking heads talking about sports. In college it was so bad that I would watch the same ESPN program two times in a row just in case I missed something before it. I'd also even watch ESPN if they were broadcasting the national spelling bee. Sports? Not necessarily, but that doesn't mean it's not a competition for which I can yell for the underdog to win.

These things have changed, perhaps, but one aspect that has evolved the most (in a negative way) is community. Remember when there were block parties, or card parties, or simply picnics when a whole community was invited? Where have those days gone? Well, I think I have a few answers and you can disagree with me if you want to.

1. Kids are busier than they have ever been before. Parents place kids in dance, sports, music etc. so early now, that the family is simply left gasping by all the places they need to drive them. this problem is driven by the need to succeed and where the parents failed in the past; they live out their dreams vicariously through their children. "I never was able to make it to the state championship basketball game," one parent might say, so he has them dribbling a basketball obsessively when the child is four months old. It's the Tiger Woods syndrome, I think. Tiger started golfing when he was two - even on the Johnny Carson show - and now every parent wants their child to be a prodigy of some sort.

2. Information technology has destroyed face-to-face communication. It is now thought that seventy-five percent of youth are not able to carry on a conversation with an adult and look them in the eyes when they speak. The cell phone has slain any sort of communication. And now that text-messaging is rampant, youth and adults no longer need to hear the voice of the other person. Even if we want to, we no longer know how to talk to each other. Instead of talking about important events in our lives - to share kids birthdays, special events, even just a meal, it now seems like work to many people and it's much easier to stay at home and be sedated by our television sets or computer screens.

3. Eating together is non-existent. A recent study suggests that an average family will sit down to a home-cooked meal once per week. Throughout the ages, this is where most family communication occurs. Taking time to prepare a meal, taking time to sit and discuss the day - these things are passe. Because we don't eat as a family, most of us no longer eat as a community either, which is one of the main reasons a community of faith is so important - eating together reaches into our innermost self and reminds us that at heart, all of us were made to be in community together.

4. Lastly, we are what we earn. The more money we make, the more important we are. People spend more time at work so that they can spend more money on a house that they are never in. There is no such thing as a nine to fiver anymore. Our value is translated by our work habits not our connections. It is the appropriate time in human existence, I believe, to refocus the community back to its roots - the greatest things in life are not things but relationships.

There is a bit of soap-boxing on my 36'th birthday. I was in the mood to take a sentimental journey and am looking forward to attempting ways to counter-act the four anti-social points that I sometimes add to my own life. Keep strong and have an excellent February 27th.