Now and then you need to look at then, now

Well, believe it or not, it is now the year 2008. When I was a kid the far fetched future talked about in science fiction books and movies was 1984, 1999, 2001 and 2010. Only one of those has not already happened.
Many of the futuristic do-dads from those fictitious settings are not even as cool as the things we really have. Would anyone actually want the bulky monotone robot from Lost in Space? (“Danger, Will Robinson” what good is that? A three pound dog can alert you to danger and the maintenance is easier.) For people with the proper know how technology can do so many things. I am not one of those people. I use my cell phone to call people and even less often to receive calls from people. Some folks can use their cell phones to send text messages, listen to music, watch video, google (to those who are less technologically savvy than I, that means “look up”) the 1975 MVP of the NBA, and get GPS directions to Nirvana.
When “older” folks like myself start complaining about how the world is going to Hades in a picnic basket the implication is it used to be better. Let’s take a look. The year is now 1908. Here are some things which happened back then.
January 21, 1908, New York City passes a law making it illegal for women to smoke in public (it was vetoed by the mayor). Nowadays that would never happen. No municipality would contemplate banning the civil liberties of any group willing to purposefully inhale smoke laced with a variety of unhealthy or even deadly toxins while generously sharing the smoke with bystanders who simply are compelled to breathe because stopping has more immediate health concerns attached. What’s that? Over twenty states have banned smoking in public places and hundreds of cities have as well? Never mind.
February 18, 1908, Japanese immigration to the United States is forbidden. Hmm, problems with immigration? That doesn’t sound familiar at all. I mean Lou Dobbs won’t even buy a CD with Hot Blooded or Double Vision on it. (That is truly an obscure reference. Give yourself 150 bonus points if you know what I’m talking about.)
September 17, 1908, Thomas Selfridge becomes the first person to die in an airplane crash. Now, you probably think poor Mr. Selfridge died due to an inept pilot who did not know how a plane really worked since it had only been invented five years earlier. Wrongo! Mr. Selfridge probably felt pretty doggoned safe. His pilot was Orville Wright, the guy who had invented it.
October 14, 1908, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. It was the second year in a row they won it. I am sure they saw the beginnings of dynasty. One hundred years later bleacher bums are still drinking large amounts of cereal malt beverages and looking for goats, Bartmans, Kerry Woods’ sixteenth arm surgery, and any other manifestation of their futility.
November 6, 1908, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are said to have been killed by soldiers in Bolivia. There has been a bit of a mystery surrounding this story. But anyone with half a brain knows they didn’t die there. They were seen in 1930’s Chicago when they took a bunch of money off mob boss Doyle Lonnegan. (This reference is only worth 35 bonus points.)
Several famous people would be celebrating their one hundredth birthday this year, if they weren’t…dead. Louis L’Amour could be working on his one hundred forty-fourth novel. That is if he kept up with his average of 2.48 books released each year from 1950 to 1987. If Edward R. Murrow was still alive he would be armed with a high powered rifle looking for Rupert Murdoch. Mel Blanc would still be one of the funniest men around that very few people had ever seen but everyone had heard. The most famous person born 1908 was born on my same birth date, September 19, Paul Benichou. What, you don’t know Paul Benichou? He was a French intellectual. Okay, so he isn’t famous today, but is anyone famous today for being an intellectual?
Actually, I do not share a birth date with many famous people. That is until you get to September 19, 1928. That is the date that a baby boy was born in Walla Walla Washington named William West Anderson. This kid would go on to make an impression upon television surpassed by very few. This kid would change his name to Adam West. Holy eighty years old, Caped Crusader!