After 37 years, everyone I knew suddenly looks old.
My wife always reminds me how I don't really seem to notice time passing. She does this by carbon-dating the incomplete items on my imaginary honey do list. (I call it imaginary because only she knows what's on it; I honestly have no idea.)
"That pile of mail has been sitting there for two weeks."
"Didn't we talk about cleaning out the garage nine years ago?"
The homeowners association president asks me if I'm ever going to put up the fence that I got approved two years ago.
When I dislocated my kneecap last November I went to my doctor. He still looked the same as remembered him, so it was strange when he said, "Haven't seen you in about seven years!"
The students I taught at the beginning of my career have grown up and left school, and many have graduated from college. One became a star college volleyball player. I sat with her family at one game per year for four straight years... whenever her team would come to town. One year I took some of my fifth-graders to the game with me. She's graduated now, coaching her own high school team. She's one of a small group of kids that I taught who remember what life was like before smart phones and social media. The most recent group can't even imagine it.
When I was a kid, I looked up to college football players and NFL stars. My favorite football player growing up was John Elway. I still see him on TV from time to time, especially since I'm still such a huge Broncos fan and he comes down to the sidelines at the end of the games. He's getting old. Last night I watched a football game featuring the game's greatest tight end, Tony Gonzalez, who is set to retire at the end of the season. He's one month younger than me. One of the game's greatest quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, who is two months younger than me, is nearing the end as well. Guys who are playing in college now were all born after the final season that I played football at Stuttgart American High School. I was one of the game's worst tackles.
I never really noticed how quickly time was passing until I started writing this book. The Gulf War rages in the background and affects the lives of my characters in many ways. It made me think of my experience waiting for my own father to come home from the Gulf, and I started looking up pictures of the people who led the effort. Colin Powell's hair is gray. George Bush is in a wheelchair. Norman Schwarzkopf died last year. I found Stormin' Norman's Desert Storm card in my garage a few weeks back, along with the cards for Syria and Afghanistan, who both supported the Coalition at the time. How times change.
One of the interesting things about writing historical fiction when said history is not so far removed from the present is that so many of the major players are still around. My characters will always be young and curious and frozen in time, but those who set the stage for them have moved on with their own stories, many of them seeing it through to the end.
I've read estimates that 107 billion people have walked the Earth throughout history. Every one of them had a story, and we'll only ever know less than 1% of those. That makes me wonder: who will be the last storyteller of the human race, and what story will he tell about the rest of us?
"That pile of mail has been sitting there for two weeks."
"Didn't we talk about cleaning out the garage nine years ago?"
The homeowners association president asks me if I'm ever going to put up the fence that I got approved two years ago.
When I dislocated my kneecap last November I went to my doctor. He still looked the same as remembered him, so it was strange when he said, "Haven't seen you in about seven years!"
The students I taught at the beginning of my career have grown up and left school, and many have graduated from college. One became a star college volleyball player. I sat with her family at one game per year for four straight years... whenever her team would come to town. One year I took some of my fifth-graders to the game with me. She's graduated now, coaching her own high school team. She's one of a small group of kids that I taught who remember what life was like before smart phones and social media. The most recent group can't even imagine it.
When I was a kid, I looked up to college football players and NFL stars. My favorite football player growing up was John Elway. I still see him on TV from time to time, especially since I'm still such a huge Broncos fan and he comes down to the sidelines at the end of the games. He's getting old. Last night I watched a football game featuring the game's greatest tight end, Tony Gonzalez, who is set to retire at the end of the season. He's one month younger than me. One of the game's greatest quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, who is two months younger than me, is nearing the end as well. Guys who are playing in college now were all born after the final season that I played football at Stuttgart American High School. I was one of the game's worst tackles.
I never really noticed how quickly time was passing until I started writing this book. The Gulf War rages in the background and affects the lives of my characters in many ways. It made me think of my experience waiting for my own father to come home from the Gulf, and I started looking up pictures of the people who led the effort. Colin Powell's hair is gray. George Bush is in a wheelchair. Norman Schwarzkopf died last year. I found Stormin' Norman's Desert Storm card in my garage a few weeks back, along with the cards for Syria and Afghanistan, who both supported the Coalition at the time. How times change.
One of the interesting things about writing historical fiction when said history is not so far removed from the present is that so many of the major players are still around. My characters will always be young and curious and frozen in time, but those who set the stage for them have moved on with their own stories, many of them seeing it through to the end.
I've read estimates that 107 billion people have walked the Earth throughout history. Every one of them had a story, and we'll only ever know less than 1% of those. That makes me wonder: who will be the last storyteller of the human race, and what story will he tell about the rest of us?
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