Time Capsules
Lieutenant Columbo could be an excellent teacher. In his classroom, you could
learn never to underestimate rumpled detectives in beat-up jalopies. You could
learn that it never hurts to ask one more question. You could even learn that a
sense of humor goes well with any job you do. But I learned something unexpected when I was bored enough to watch a rerun
of a rerun a couple of weeks ago. Lieutenant Columbo solved a crime when he
examined a photograph taken of the suspect during the Korean Conflict. Fifteen
years earlier. Fifteen years? My goodness, try almost fifty. If it were not for M*A*S*H,
itıs unlikely that any of us would give veterans who fought there a second
thought. Yet when I entered high school, the Korean Conflict had indeed ended a mere
fifteen years earlier. And the United States was still fully embroiled in the
so-called police action in Vietnam. I remember when we called it quits in Vietnam, and I remember it clearly. One
of my college suitemates was a Vietnamese national, and I heard the news through
her eyes, saw the mixed emotions with my own ears. For me, that was not history.
It was this young, scared nursing major worrying about her family, her village,
her future. To put things in perspective, the Challenger disaster is to current high
school freshmen what the Korean Conflict was to me: an event they cannot
remember. And incoming college freshmen see the police action in Vietnam as I
saw the Shoah. Extrapolating this timeline a bit further, I understand that the Class of
2001 grasps the slaughter of six million Jews equally as badly as I "get" the
trench warfare of Doughboys in World War I, the "great war." That war, and the
Great Depression that followed, are well outside my knowledge base. I studied
both events in history classes, but nothing connects me to either calamity. We baby boomers do however have a connection to the Shoah and
subsequent wars and police actions. Our parents, aunts and uncles, and family
friends have shared their World War II experiences with us. And except for those
years, when as teenagers we knew our parents knew nothing, we listened and
imagined the stories we heard. From Vietnam on, it was our friends, our brothers and sisters, our
classmates, and eventually our children who made history. Who fought wars, ran
for political office, took charge of life and things that make the evening news.
We know the nuances of the recent historical record, we comprehend and relate to
the ambiguities, the evil, the good, the scapegoats, the flag burners. But just because we are the invincible baby boomers, time will not stand
still for us, no matter what we think. One day we watch a familiar Columbo
television show, and that "fifteen years earlier" hits us between the eyes and
reminds us that fifteen plus thirty equals forty-five. We can take that new-found perspective, and refill our arthritis
prescription. Or we can take note of the wisdom of our tradition, that teaches
us to teach our children to remember. Not to remember so they grow up to be
hate-filled racists, out to avenge every wrong. But to remember so they can do
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God. That is a concept that will still be valid hundreds of years from now, when
M*A*S*H and Lieutenant Columbo are long forgotten.
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