20 Years Ago Today

Still crazy busy, but I had to blog this before I forgot-

Let's flashback to the past. History Class with Mr. Rowey. Mr. Rowey was that veteran history teacher who'd been at it for decades. Smiley guy with a fiery temper. Then again, he was a teacher - all teachers should have fiery tempers after a few decades trying to get through to the minds of young people.

Mr. Rowey had made the decision to retire. So towards the end of his final school year, he would wax poetic. Now thinking back on it, he was probably being very wistful and pouring his heart out to us - reflecting on his decades of teaching. If I hadn't been a typical dumb teenage kid, I would've sat up and paid close attention. But at the time? I was a typical dumb teenage kid and I was bored out of my mind.

Now one particular day, Mr. Rowey was talking about how those who study history have insight into the future - that they can see patterns and predict events based on how things have happened in the past.

Mr. Rowey specifically told a story from around 1950 about a history teacher of his who asked if anyone knew where Indochina was. No one knew. This teacher of Mr. Rowey's said that Indochina had all the wrong combination of colonialism, poverty, and a dangerous communist insurgency. This teacher made the prediction that Indochina would become the worst war the world had ever seen. Years later Indochina would be renamed Vietnam - and things unfolded exactly like the history teacher had predicted.

So Mr. Rowey was going to make his prediction. And it went something like this-

Communism is going to fail. It can't sustain itself. Sometime soon in your lifetimes the Berlin Wall will fall.

I remember this barely registering in my mind. I looked around to see if anyone else was paying attention - no one was paying attention. And so it went. Mr. Rowey retired and I forgot all about it.

Until November 9, 1989. Then I'm sitting in my living room watching the Berlin Wall come down.


So to all my teachers who got up and went to work each day at my embarrassing public schools - and to all my teachers who tried to teach me something when I didn't really want to listen.

Thanks. You got through to me.

Also, I can't believe it's been twenty years. EGADS I'm old...