FoxyJ is married and has two children. She lives in California and recently started a PhD program in Comparative Literature. When she has free time she enjoys reading, blogging, watching movies, and riding her bike. She has been blogging for about three years at Yellow Wallpaper. Welcome FoxyJ!
In early August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. At the time my father was working as a military contractor, and by the end of August he was in Saudi Arabia with a group of Marines. My mom spent hours watching TV, often accompanied by a friend from our ward whose husband was also deployed. I was twelve years old, and for six months of my life the Gulf War formed the background to my awkward attempts to navigate junior high. I remember shaving my legs for the first time with CNN playing in the background. A little less than two years later, a jury acquitted four police officers accused in the beating of Rodney King. My mom and I were listening to the radio on our way to my orthodontist appointment. Los Angeles was already in flames by the time we got back in the car an hour later. The first presidential election I was eligible to vote in was Clinton versus Dole; I think I actually didn’t get around to voting since I was a brand-new freshman and maneuvering absentee balloting was over my head, but I was going to vote for Clinton. I’m not sure why exactly, probably just because I was raised by Democrats.
I’ve been pondering these experiences of my youth lately because of a horrifying thought I had the other day while walking across campus: the freshmen beside me were born in 1990! While LA was burning, they were toddling around oblivious. Bill Clinton is a blip on their memory, the background to elementary school. Bosnia, Oklahoma City, and Rwanda are as distant to them as Iran Contra, Nicaragua, and the Berlin Wall are to me. While I was watching in horror as news of Columbine unfolded on the TVs in the basement of the BYU bookstore, they were probably happily playing during fourth-grade recess. Events that have formed a key part of my journey from childhood absorption to adult awareness are completely unknown to them.
And yet, they have their own formative events seen from their own perspective. I think of my perplexity as my mom tries to explain to me the church before the 1978 revelation on the priesthood and realize that every generation has its cultural touchstones. I’m really not all that old, but sometimes I feel like it. I think I’m in a weird in-between stage—aware of how far I’ve come, yet simultaneously aware of how far I have to go. I know that in ten years I’ll look back on this moment and laugh at how “old” I felt at age thirty. But I also know that in ten years perspective will change again. It’s so hard to remember the past, and so easy to forget about it or to misremember it as new events find their way into the fabric of popular history. Part of why I write, both on my blog and in my journal, is to attempt to fix my perspective and my feelings at a particular moment in time. So when my grandchildren ask me what it was like when Obama became president I will hopefully have something to tell them.
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I love this about journaling and blogging. Catching yourself in a given moment and perspective before it all changes- to read yourself at another time, before given events.
I love this post, FoxyJ. It reminds me that history should never be forgotten, and growing up “unawares” often breeds ignorance. This is probably why history has always been a favorite subject of mine. I hope my kids grow up with a good grasp of history and the major events that have shaped their country and the world…
One thing this reminds me of is a professor at BYU who made some remark about a book being so good it changed the way he looked at the world, and that not very many books did that.
I was so horrified for him — back then books were changing the way I looked at life every day.
I hope we don’t lose the ability to be changed by events (good or bad, events can change us for the better, right?) as we grow up.
It’s definitely bizarre to see how quickly things change for each generation. My oldest was in first grade on 9/11, so my kids don’t really get the pre-9/11 world.
I was five in 1990, so the Gulf War didn’t really change my life. It’s so weird to me that my kids won’t even understand what 9/11 meant– my first was born just this year. But I’m sure that is how my grandparents felt about WWII and their children.
My dad grew up in small town Texas; he was born in 1943. He attended segregated schools. He didn’t know any other way of being until society changed, and he changed.
His mother was a big-time Democrat-both she and my grandfather worked for Lyndon Johnson. But I cannot ever imagine that she would vote for this particular democrat; it was just too far outside of what she believed/perceived to be true.
My generation has elected an African-American for POTUS.
When my daughters are my age (39 1/2–not 40 yet!), they won’t think about race at all when they elect folks for office.
Blogging is definitely the way I document my personal history.
This was great. I remember having nightmares about war in junior high during the Iran Contra situation, though I have little recollection of what it was about (even reading Reading Lolita . . . my memory is so short-term for history!). I like what you said about why you blog and journal. I have tried to write about significant events, but not consistently enough. Thanks for this!
FoxyJ- I love this post and totally identify with it. My earliest “national events” memories are Reagan getting shot (and my mom skipping her beloved aerobics class to stay home and watch tv) and the Challenger explosion (coming in from sledding on a snow day, eating grilled cheese and tomato soup, and watching tv). I tried to wake my kids up in the middle of the night last night to watch Obama speak, trying to help them create one of these kinds of memories, but they were too sound asleep to budge.
All day I’ve been thinking how I want to have a deep intellectual conversation with someone about this day. Staying at home with a sick toddler didn’t make it possible. Perhaps it really is a prompting to write in my journal.
I remember sitting in the library in elementary school when the hostages from the Iran Hostage Crisis where released as Reagan was sworn in. (my children tell me they don’t even cover this crisis.)
Before that, I remember going to the voting booth with my parents in the election between Carter and Ford. My parents said they were voting for Carter even though they usually voted Republican. They had a ballot for children to vote and I voted for Ford.
They interrupted my High School English class to tell us about the Challenger Explosion.
I do think it’s up to us to help our children and (when time) grandchildren remember history.
Your observations are so true. As I sat and watched the events unfold on television last night, a series of flashbacks went through my mind–Brown vs Board of Education, Civil Rights Act, Martin Luther King Jr., LA riots, Chicago riots, Kennedy/LBJ/Viet Nam, Kent State, BYU vs UTEP (burning the basketball floor)… (Obviously I am much older than many of you.)What amazed me was how rapidly these memories surfaced and the force of the emotion that came with them. Remembering is not always pleasant, but it is a precious gift.
And I journal and blog for the same reasons–to take a verbal snapshot of events too important to forget.
I had a teacher that told me once “you should always keep a journal because you never know when you are in the middle (or beginning) of something amazing”.
Sometimes we DO know, but usually it sneaks up on us.
You know, I don’t agree with Obama’s politics. I did not want him to be president. That being said, there was an electricty in the air during his acceptance speech. The first black president. I felt a sense of pride for my country that this could happen. Just over a hundred years ago, we were enslaving God’s children for their color. Now, we are looking beyond color and electing an African American to office. It is an amazing feeling, inspite of our political differences. And that deserves respect. God bless America!
Living in a struggling, working class suburb of Detroit, I have seen politics altogether differently this presidential season. Setting aside platforms and policy, the electricity in the air was palpable and tearful celebration visible. The bookmark moment for me came standing in line with my 3rd grader, waiting to vote, and hearing her ask, “Why is it such a big deal that Obama is black?” A warmth rushed through me knowing the power of moving in the right direction across generations. She doesn’t see color as I did when I was a child. I just smiled and told her to memorize the emotions on the people face’s around her, and one day when she reads about it in history books, she just might remember the joy of this history vote.
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