To Have Been Around When...

Life is made up of a series of what-ifs, and it's a topic that can be discussed for hours on end, especially by well-to-do (code for nothing-to-do) aristocrats. I found myself particularly transfixed by David Shribman's piece today, how of all places to have been a fly on the wall, he would have picked the Kennedy-Johnson VP conference of 1960.

In my case, I no longer think "To Have Been in the Room When" but "To Have Been Around When" Certainly, there are events from my lifetime that I wish I could have witnessed, such as the French Revolution and the 1802 day a stupid aristocrat drove his horses into Stonehenge, but here is a brief list of events I would have liked to have been around for:

1. The Victorian era, 1837 - 1901 - I still have a chance to see part of this, if Lady Catherine decides to bring me back. It just seems a golden period in British history. Could I meet Charles Dickens?

2. The Wright Brothers, 1903 - I would have loved to have seen the beginnings of flight.

3. The Holocaust, 1939-1945 - Specifically, the Concentration Camps, which make the greater injustices of my time seem like a poor day's hunt. I find it important for every human being to witness humanity at its worst, so as to never duplicate such maligned behavior.

4. Neil Armstrong on the moon, 1969 - I am still in disbelief. The thought of reaching the moon was beyond the realm of fantasy in my day. It truly stands as a monumental moment in human progress.

5. 1989 - Leonard Bernstein conducts the largest international orchestra in Beethoven's 9th to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall (actually on DVD). This may seem a trivial choice, but for a man of my time, few things can express a more surprising unification than the whole world playing Beethoven. I was privy to some of Beethoven's earlier symphonies, but I never heard the 9th. By the way, that was real music.

Oh, and one more:

October 26, 1947 - The day my dear Hillary graced this Earth with her presence.