I was thinking about how things drift out of sight.
The other day, Benny Goodman had a birthday. He would have been 114 years old but passed away in 1986. A heart attack killed him when he was 77 years old.
Yep. Benny Goodman.
He was born in Chicago to Polish immigrant parents. He was the ninth kid out of twelve. And when he came into this world, he had no idea he’d grow up to be a talented clarinetist and magnificent band leader. He couldn’t have known he’d come to be called the “King of Swing.” More than that, he had no idea he would be making some of Paul Kronenberger’s favorite music. Yeah, some guy from Ohio was always listening to Benny on the radio. But oh, how Paul loved to hear Benny’s band play. Paul would even put those records on for his youngest daughter and play the music for her. Songs like “Sing, Sing, Sing” and Don’t Be That Way.”
That Benny Goodman is barely a memory of mine now. And I would bet large dollars that my grandkids have never heard of him. They probably haven’t heard of Harold Lloyd. Or Ingrid Bergman, either.
I’m curious if they’ve ever known of Avon or Shaklee Products. It won’t be long until Tupperware is out of sight.
Those things that fade away.
I don’t know if my grandmas ever voted.
I don’t know my dad’s favorite color.
Or my mom’s favorite movie.
There aren’t busy signals on phones anymore.
Or black and white static on TVs.
It is rare to see a public payphone or a folded paper map.
Record stores are all but gone.
Buckwheat cereal, the Betsy Wetsy Doll.
The lead pipe from Clue is no longer, and neither is the thimble in Monopoly.
There is that old axiom, that belief, that something doesn’t die as long as someone continues to remember it. George Eliot once said, “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” Yes, George Eliot, who was really Mary Ann Evans, the great writer, who died in 1880. Yes, she is gone too.
But then what happens? When those memories are gone?
There are roughly 117 billion people who have lived on Earth so far. Right now, 8 billion of us are roaming around. That’s 109 billion people who have past. Gone from sight and site. And gone with them are the tools they used, the food they cooked, the games they played, the crops they planted, the stories they told.
The past has now passed. In some places and in some ways, it lives on.
Yet, in other aspects, what happened once is gone forever.
Or is it?
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“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
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“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
― William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
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“The past is never where you think you left it.”
― Katherine Anne Porter
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Gone from sight. And site. But I can still hear him.
