43

43 years ago I graduated from college.

The year was 1980.

• Republicans crafted the complete stone fiction that Ronnie Raygun "rescued" the hostages held at the American Embassy in Iran. How? By giving Ayatollah Khomeini a sharp, flinty glare and talking Clint Eastwood tough. Sure, that was sooooo believable (if you were profoundly dimbulbed and got all your news from filthy swindlers like Olly North. FYI, most Americans were).
  
• John Lennon was murdered.
• Mount St. Helens erupted killing 57 people.
• Post-It Notes were invented.
• On the charts and and my 8 track tape player? Rolling Stones-Emotional Rescue, Queen-Another One Bites the Dust and Talking Heads-Once in a Lifetime

The Macintosh 128K, the first Apple Macintosh personal computer, wouldn’t hit the world for another four years.

Goddamn, I’m feeling old.

43 years before 1980 it was 1937. My father had one candle on his birthday cake that year. My mother had 10.  In that year:

• Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a flight around the world
  
• The Hindenburg had a wee accident.
  
• The Memorial Day Massacre happened. This was when police in Chicago shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators during a steel workers strike. No cops were held responsible—it was judged "justifiable homicide."
• The Hobbit was first published.
• Top tunes in 1937? Count Basie’s One O’Clock Jump, Benny Goodman’s Sing, Sing, Sing, Billie Holiday’s I’ve Got My Live to Keep Me Warm.

World War II was two years off and the U.S. wouldn’t join in all the horror until 1941.
A lot can happen in 43 years. Where will we be 43 years from now, in 2066?

• Dunno ‘bout you but, by then, I’ll have been sleeping with the fishies for at least a couple of decades.
• Will Valhalla be under water? Will the West Coast be nothing but desert? Will Florida have vanished like Atlantis (a stupid Atlantis)? Probably.
  
• Might humans have colonized Mars? Not if MusKKK (AKA Space Karen) is at all involved.
• Will biotech have advanced to the point that organ donors are unnecessary? Need a heart or lung transplant? Ring up Draper or Sanofi and have one delivered by tea time.
• Will there finally be a cure for the summertime blues?
  

Frankly, I’ll be flat-out stunned if 2066 rolls around and humans still exist at all. Given that I’ll be all deady and shit, how will I know to be stunned or not?  Like this—I’ll be looking in from my alternate paradisal dimension. You know, it’s the afterlife locale ruled by cats, where snacks, naps and brill books (by Catherynne Valente, Louise Penny and Martin Millar to name just a few ambrosial authors) are the general plan for each and every day.