Where Were You When?

I was just a kid whent the Berlin Wall was torn down, but I remember my dad calling me into the living room and making me watch it on TV with him because he said it was going to be one of the most historic moments of our time or something like that. I also remember my grandmother talking about how everyone of her generation remembered where they were the day JFK was killed. I don't remember anything else about what I was doing the day the Berlin Wall started coming down, but I can tell you more about what I did on 9/11 than almost any other day in my life, except maybe my wedding day and the days my children were born.

Intersting that the events that seem to shape our country's history and identity are usually catastrophic, while the events that have shaped my personal history tend to be cause for celebration. Maybe it is not like that for everyone, I haven't experienced a lot of loss in my life, aside from my parents' divorce. I suppose as I get older, that may change.

I do hope that this recent crash of the housing market and downturn of the economy will not be one of the events that I look back on as shaping my life or our country's history. I desperately want for it to be a temporary setback, a bump in the road that gets quickly flattened out.

When I was in high school, I had to interview someone and write a report on it (it may have been for freshmen english, but I can't say for sure). I chose to interview my great-grandmother about what she could recall about the Great Depression. She's 96 now, so she must have been around 82-years-old at the time, but she clearly remembered a time when her and her family had to stay in bed under the covers because they didn't have any heat or any food either. Her grandmother finally came and brought them something to eat--potatoes, I believe.

I'm not saying any of this to scare anyone or because I really believe we are about to play out the sequel to the Great Depression or anything like, but I do think that the next president we choose will be key in determing how this period of time goes down in history. Will it be a sidenote or will it demand its own chapter?

I watched the debate last night and I'm still not sure who I am going to vote for. I like Obama, I think change would be good for our country, but I don't know if I'm ready for that radical of change--I'm not prepared to become a socialist. However, John Mc Cain's plan to buy up all these mortgages that are in default and renegotiate them seems ludicrous! I don't think our country can afford to buy up another $300 billion in bad debt on top of the $700 billion we already have. In fact, just as TIME magazine pointed out about the bailout, John Mc Cain's new plan is a pretty socialist thing to do too. Thinking about it is starting to make me a little apathetic--I mean either one has got to be better than George Bush, right?

I hate being apathetic--I'll let you know how I feel after the next debate.