Gregory Freeman: Remembering The Old, Ringing In The New: Cars Don't Fly Yet, But We're Much Better Off Than We Were. PD 1/1/2000

Headline: REMEMBERING THE OLD, RINGING IN THE NEW: CARS DON'T FLY YET, BUT WE'RE MUCH BETTER OFF THAN WE WERE
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sat. Jan. 1, 2000
Section: NEWS, Page: 5, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

What a difference 100 years makes; 876,600 little hours . . .
  A century. Wow.
  Here we are, in the 21st century.
  It's not at all how I had imagined it.

When I was in the eighth grade, a teacher gave us an assignment to write about life in the year 2000. This was 1970, and the idea of life in the 21st century seemed so far off, so futuristic.
   But I let my imagination go. Like many baby boomers, I'd been weaned on "The Jetsons, " so flying cars were a natural. Cars would fly to their destinations. Even better, people would no longer drive them. They would just tell the car where they wanted to go, sit back and be delivered to their destinations as they read the paper or drank a cup of coffee.
   People would no longer be overweight, either, because we wouldn't eat food. Instead, we'd take pills alone for our nutrition.
   The world would finally have learned to live in peace and harmony, I wrote, and wars would be a thing of the past, found only in history books. The same would be the case for racial strife. Everyone would have equal rights, and blacks and whites would live together, with differences in skin color being no more important than differences in hair color or eye color.
   I had other ideas as well, like buildings that would hover instead of being attached to the ground, although I can't recall now what the advantage of that was supposed to be.

Now here we are, on the first day of the first year of the new millennium.
My car doesn't fly. My house doesn't hover. I'm not taking pills instead of eating food, although a look at my girth might make you think that wouldn't be a bad idea. We've still got wars. And we've still got racial tension.

But while the year 2000 hasn't lived up to my childhood expectations, there's no question that the world has changed drastically since 1900, the last time our year ended with two zeros.
Someone materializing here from 100 years ago would be amazed at all of the changes.
Aside from the most obvious -- automobiles have changed trips that once took hours to mere minutes, computers have given us access to information all over the world -- lots of other changes have taken place.

Ours is a much more sanitary place than ever before.
Indoor plumbing was a novelty in 1900. Daily bathing wasn't common. Deodorant? Fuhgedaboutit. Cleanliness in food preparation wasn't common. And antibiotics hadn't been developed yet. Ours was a pretty dirty and smelly place.

While some think that race relations today are worse than ever, few can recall firsthand how bad they were at the turn of the 20th century. Society in general opposed the idea of equal rights for blacks, and that opposition was backed up by laws that granted African-Americans second-class status. Interracial marriage was not only an affront to decency in those days, but in most states was a punishable offense. Lynching was an all-too-common occurrence.
The idea of equal rights for women was equally frowned upon in 1900. The idea that women could ever lead major corporations or play significant roles in business was an alien concept.

We've come a long way since 1900.

Chances are, we'll come even further -- and faster -- in the next 100 years, though you can be sure there will be plenty of bumps along the way. If we're fortunate, we'll get through it without civil wars, nuclear meltdowns, racial unrest or new, devastating diseases.
I'm the eternal optimist. I think all those things are possible. Indeed, if we can achieve them, it won't matter if we see flying cars by the end of this century or by the end of this millennium.
Here's to the 2000s!

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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