They don’t really mean anything; they’re just numbers. I’ve been thinking and reading about the Civil War. 1865; it’s just a number for something that happened a long time ago. The date helps us put events in order. 1865 comes after 1776; equally unfathomably distant times.
I also remember talking with a grandmother in the 1960s when I was young. Grandma was already old. She was so old she was born in 1880. That was striking to me then, because I knew there weren’t any automobiles or airplanes in 1880. Automobiles weren’t really popular until the 1910s. Air travel didn’t happen until the 1930s. She went from no cars and no airplanes to rockets blasting off into space and astronauts in orbit in the 1960s, and the moon landing in 1969; but that’s not the point of this thought. This thought is not about what transpired during her life, it’s about what happened just before. She was born only 25 years, one generation, after the Civil War. That close. In her life she knew, talked to, and lived with people who experienced the Civil War. She was that close to being alive during the Civil War that happened so long ago it’s just a number in a history book.
How could so long ago be that close to being within reach?
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