20 Summers

Maybe it's because I am getting older, but I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about...well, time. I'm thinking about how time slows and speeds up at seemingly irrelevant paces, of which I control neither. I watch moveis about time travel and realize humanity is so very caught up in the concept of time conservation, alteration, and relativity. However, even Einstein himself declared that time is a mode of existence, not a condition of it. In other words time is a man made measurement of physical change, and the repetitive cycles of that change that by and large are quantifiable and predictable. Time is like weight, length, and volume. Measurable, yet consistent methods of elements we desire out of pure necessity to place an exact value.

20 summers ago I was nine years old. On my ninth birthday, my birthday always falling on the first day of summer, I attended a Richmond Braves baseball game with a dozen on my closest little buddies. A severe thunderstorm rolled in, and we opted to head back to my parents to watch the widely coveted motion picture Rocky 5.

The summer of 1990 was all about ring pops, skip it, sharks and minnows, and sleepovers. This was years before bills required long work weeks, health required dental and vision plans, cancer had yet to ravage my family, and all my grandparents were still alive for me to hug and listen to their heartbeat. I hadn’t a care in the world, aside from how to tell Rainey Lacey, my 4th grade crush, how pretty I thought she was. There was no Eminem, but there was Vanilla Ice. There was “Pants on the ground”, but there were Hammer pants. There was no AIM, iPhones, Facebook, MySpace, Wii, or generally even an interactive “web” of computerized networks. We did, however, indulge in Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Oregon Trail, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?

The summer of 1990 saw a change in the world, and a change in the way I viewed the world. From age 8 to 9 the Berlin wall fell, Russia held its first free election since 1917, and George Bush took over as president. The same year Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi armies invaded Kuwait, and America officially took part in the Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm.

The summer of 1990 would undoubtedly usher in a decade of generation x, the children of the baby boomers rise to prominence, and change in the nature of social revelations. One could say the world was on the cusp of a great technological era, and the good old days of your grandparent’s WWII world of black and white gone for good. But, I have many fond memories of my summer in 1990, perhaps more memories than someone my age should have of that year. A guy named Michael Jordan, especially his shoes, were making all of us kids want to be like Mike. Unfortunately for Mr. Jordan, I had already fallen in love with my red and white size 7 Reebok Pumps.

Many of you weren’t even born yet, just as I was not alive to witness the triumph and tragedy of my parent’s generation. To my friends reading this who are under the age of 20: In the summer of 1990 Mike Bailey conquered his fear of the high dive, started his second season of Little League baseball, hadn’t hit puberty, earned his black belt, and grew two inches to a towering height of 4 foot 7. Who knew that 20 summers later I would be typing this to friends who won’t be born for another 3-4 years? Who knew that 20 summers later I would “tag” friends in this note who I won’t meet until ten years later in college, in Denver 13 year later, or on some tropical island 17 years after.

In the summer of 1990 I hadn’t even lived one third of the life I have lived up until now. 20 summers ago the twin towers still graced the New York skyline and September 11th was simply the second week of classes, 64 count crayon boxes, and number 2 pencils. My grandparents would stay up late and talk with me on the porch, and if I was lucky I watch Johnny Carson with them.

If I step outside on a warm evening like tonight and take a deep breath, 20 summers ago might as well be this very moment of collective thought. What is 20 years really? What is it to age, and grow up? 20 summers ago where were you?

-Mike Bailey