Each day. The world puts forth an uncountable number of experiences. Take this day, now. Here. All of your actions, interactions, and experiences, and multiply that by 8 billion people. There’s a lot that goes on in our world, in
1,440 minutes.
People fall in love, babies are born, new inventions are discovered, wars are started. Chicken salad on white is chosen over ham on rye. It happens.
It was on this day, February 7, that Bryan Woods was born in 1921. I was not familiar with the name, and the birthday listing only relayed that he was a soldier/clerk. I searched the internet for this Bryan Woods, only to find a few mentions of his birthdate. Given the year of his birth, I am assuming he was a soldier in WWII. But something about his soldier/clerk-ness made him famous.
Most of us will never know. And this is yet another example of the things that happen on this planet, unbeknownst to us.
On this date, too, during that war, in 1943, shoe rationing began in the United States. I am not sure how many pairs a family was allowed to purchase. But those were the sacrifices that had to be made to get the country through a war. Imagine asking certain Americans to do that now. They can’t even wear a mask, they are so entitled.
But we come, and we go.
Another event gives us the birth of Charles Dickens, coming into this world in 1812. Many of us are familiar with his novels, and many of us are not. Nonetheless, his was a full life, all the way from his childhood, where his father was thrown into debtor’s prison, to his deathbed, where he passed from a stroke in 1870.
Dickens, it seems, had a thing for ghosts. He included them in some of his stories, the most famous set coming right around Christmas. Yet, he had quite an experience on June 9, 1865. He was on a train, returning from Paris with his mistress. The train had a horrible crash, and the first seven carriages plunged off a cast-iron bridge that was under repair.
But there sat Charles in first-class. It was the only carriage to remain on the track. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended to the wounded and the dying. He comforted them with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water. According to the report, he also saved some lives.
Dickens used that experience of the crash as the basis for his short ghost story, “The Signal-Man.” In the story, the main character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. I should also note, from that point on, Dickens did not like to travel by train and took every measure to avoid it.
Sometimes the world serves us events that are related by uncanny circumstances. Other times, there seems to be a total disconnect. Or, it could just be where we are standing.
Have a look at Baltimore. On this very date, in 1817, Baltimore became the first American city lit by gas street lamps. The first lights were turned on at Market and Lemon Streets.
Then, on this same date in 1904, Baltimore caught fire. It caught big, big fire. In fact, 1500 buildings were destroyed in 80 blocks. About 1,000 other buildings were severely damaged over a total area of 140 acres. I doubt the cause was faulty street lights, but one little spark started somewhere. And it leveled an entire city.
And that is how it goes. One event. One spark and it rolls through the ages. A soldier in a war somewhere, and that war igniting rationing for millions of people, not to mention countless deaths.
A street lamp stood, where years later, a fire would roll through and destroy an entire city.
A train wreck, allowing a man to escape its wrath, and he goes on to give us his ghost stories.
It is a wide world out there. We should never forget how much our little worlds may touch one another and extend outward, beyond our very reason.
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“Nothing happens until something moves.”
― Albert Einstein
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“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.”
― Ray Bradbury
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“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
― Carl Sagan
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One little nudge and the whole bunch of dominoes fall.
