He wove His spell, Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled, With unconsidered miracle, Hedged in a backward-gazing world;
Then taught His chosen bard to say: “Our King was with us — yesterday!”
– Rudyard Kipling, “The King”
We are a backward-gazing world, looking back to the good old days, when things were better and life was simpler. That struck home for me when I read @jennastocker‘s outstanding post 50 Years of ‘American Graffiti’ and especially the reactions to it. For me, and for everyone that graduated from high school between 1962 and 1973, if we saw that movie for the first time when it came out, the movie was about the summer after our graduation from high school. We could pick out students from our school to fill every role in the movie. That was especially true for me, since I saw it during the late summer following graduation, during its release.
It did not represent the past in the summer of 1973. It was our present and future. We could fill the fuel tank on our car for $5 and cruise. Three months later, that all changed with the Yom Kippur War, the 1973 oil embargo and subsequent oil shock. For everyone who graduated from high school after 1974, the movie must have seemed like a time machine to an earlier, simpler, and better time.
Yet it has been that way all my life. My college years, from 1973 to 1979 were terrifying. Stagflation, few jobs, the loss of Vietnam, the Soviet Union on the march, taking over Afghanistan, gasoline through the roof. I wouldn’t want to go through it again, not knowing how it would turn out. But it was also a pretty good time. College was fun, I was an independent adult (which was a lot better than living in your parents’ place), I had an interesting job working with some of the earliest databases, I found the love of my life. I can look back on those years with nostalgia.
Then came graduation and starting a career. 1979 was a lousy time to start one. The Iran crisis and the second oil shock. Through the early eighties, everything was going wrong. Hyperinflation and Desert One. Mortgage rates through the roof. America held hostage. High taxes. The dying leader of the Soviet Union ordering an attack on the US. (He was ignored.) Reagan shot. Yet I can look back on that period fondly. I had gotten married. We had a car (man, that’s something), and we took it from Michigan to Texas so we could start jobs on the then-new Space Shuttle. Soon we had a house and kids, and were part of something big.
Then came the mid-eighties through the early nineties. Things were uncertain and it looked like the world was going to fall apart. Wait. I’ve done that twice already, haven’t I? I’ll tell you all the bad things going on, and then the good thing that happened, and why looking back after forty years, there were a lot of good things I remember fondly. And I could go on slicing my life into seven- to eight-year intervals right on up to the present and do the same thing.
That is not to say it was all good. There were grim periods throughout. In retrospect, I see those times as blows on hot steel, hammering my life into a harder temper. I would not want to repeat them, but I am not sorry they happened. It made me and my family what we became. It also made me more confident I can withstand the blows to come.
Today? Things look grim. But they have always been grim. The past looks inviting. It has always been inviting. Yes, much is taken, but abides, and although I am not that strength of the old days, that which I am, I am. I am glad the past happened, and can look back on it with fondness, but I would not want to go back. I look forward to the future, to see what goes wrong and what goes right. To strive, to seek, and not to yield. Bring on tomorrow.
The King – Rudyard Kipling
"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said; "With bone well carved He went away, Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead, And jasper tips the spear to-day. Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance, And He with these. Farewell, Romance!" "Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed; "We lift the weight of flatling years; The caverns of the mountain-side Hold him who scorns our hutted piers. Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell, Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!" "Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke; "By sleight of sword we may not win, But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke Of arquebus and culverin. Honour is lost, and none may tell Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!" "Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried; "Our keels have lain with every sea; The dull-returning wind and tide Heave up the wharf where we would be; The known and noted breezes swell Our trudging sails. Romance, farewell!" "Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said; "He vanished with the coal we burn. Our dial marks full-steam ahead, Our speed is timed to half a turn. Sure as the ferried barge we ply 'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!" "Romance!" the season-tickets mourn, "He never ran to catch His train, But passed with coach and guard and horn -- And left the local -- late again!" Confound Romance!... And all unseen Romance brought up the nine-fifteen. His hand was on the lever laid, His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks, His whistle waked the snowbound grade, His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks; By dock and deep and mine and mill The Boy-god reckless laboured still! Robed, crowned and throned, He wove His spell, Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled, With unconsidered miracle, Hedged in a backward-gazing world; Then taught His chosen bard to say: "Our King was with us -- yesterday!"Published in Group Writing
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