I was trying to catch up on email during a coffee break, but I got distracted by the two gentlemen in their 60s-70s who were talking at the next table.
The younger one was answering questions about how people can have so many opinions about President Trump all the time. The gist of his answer: Trump writes short notes on electronic media and shares them with anyone who has a computer via a place called Twitter. So people aren't just responding to his policies or his recent military actions; they're also interacting with these notes, which at times are actually quite brash or vulgar.
Both men continued evaluating the pros and cons of various ideas, asking sincere questions and giving thoughtful answers, comparing recent events with past wartime experiences, and maintaining a perfectly relaxing conversational tone.
Their conversation was so completely opposite of the hype and drama we've become used to on social media lately. It made me wonder how many of today's kids will grow up without ever engaging in thoughtful conversations like this with their elders.
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Then back to work, and my next class observation included a chance to read through a newspaper from 1918! This yellowed, tattered artifact was so fragile yet still strong enough to be here 100 years later--and to think it was originally read by people who are probably no longer here to influence our daily lives! Significantly older than the gentlemen whom I'd admired earlier this morning. The early 1900s had never felt as close, as real, as they did when I held that paper today.
I'm so grateful for the chance to eavesdrop on those two gentlemen this morning, and to leaf through this 1918 newspaper. I imagine that we could all benefit from more frequent connections to our past--as grandchildren, or as citizens of a collective history. It might even just help us return to that sense of thoughtful calm from our past...You know, like from the days of WWI...
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