Where Does Time Go

NASA Space Program

I can’t tell you how many times my wife or some other family member will talk to me about something that happened in the past and I will be surprised at how much time has gone by.  Some things are more memorable than others, and that’s when time seems to slip by the fastest.  A most common passage of time is when we run into someone we haven’t seen for a while, and we asked them about their little one, only to find out that their youngest is graduating from high school or college and the older ones already have kids of their own.

Consider the following article from “Today In History,” from our local newspaper:

• In 1961, President John F. Kennedy held the first presidential news conference to be carried live on radio and television. 
• In 1971, Charles Manson and three women were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven, including actress Sharon Tate, who once lived in Richland, WA.  Idi Amin seized power in Uganda by ousting President Obote in a military coup.
• In 1981, the 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived in the United States. 
• In 1994, maintaining his innocence, singer Michael Jackson settled a child molestation lawsuit against him; terms were confidential, although the monetary figure was reportedly $22 million.  /the United States launched Clementine, an unmanned spacecraft that was to study the moon before it was lost and “gone forever.” 
• Ten years ago NASA’s Opportunity rover zipped its first pictures of Mars to Earth, showing a surface smooth and dark red in some places, and strewn with fragmented slabs of light bedrock in others.

 

In today’s digital world, a presidential news conference is no longer special news, and usually doesn’t even get coverage from all the available networks.  Charles Manson still makes the news every year as he goes before the board of parole, and gets denied.  Iran is still making news as terrorist country.  Michael Jackson is no longer with us.  NASA and the Space program is for all intents and purposes on hold for budget reasons we are flying missions to the international Space Station by hitching a ride with the Soviet Union’s Space program. Many of the friends that we don’t see on a regular bases grow older faster than we do (I hate to think what they think of our aging process.  The best is yet to come…..