Open in 25 years

The handwriting on the envelope said September 18, 1990. Open in 25 years. I hesitated. Figuratively, I scratched my head. I really shook it, my head. What in the ... I had no idea what I held in my hand, an envelope that had been transferred to different drawers several times.

Twenty-five years? That's just a year away, I thought. A lot can happen in a year. As fast as the world spins now, a lot can change, can happen in 25 years. I tore open the envelope. A long, slender clipping unfolded in my hand. I recognized the heading: "Off the Cuff." A bell didn't ring, so I began reading. Finally it all, or at least part of it, came back to me.

It was on a September day that many years ago when Howard Mosier, a friend from Sulphur Springs came into the News Herald with an envelope with some scribbling in it, some predictions and thoughts he had written 25 years earlier. He shared them with me and it was very interesting. Some things were almost laughable; others were quite perceptive and thought provoking. After he left, I decided to clip the week's 'cuff, put it in an envelope, and would, if I were still around 25 years later, open it.

So here it is. A little more than a year early. Some of this sounds pretty dated; the thoughts are not predictions, but rather observations on that late summer day in 1990; in fact some of it could be written today. Read it with me and ... .

"Isn't it ironic that just as the world was breathing a collective sigh of relief at the thaw in the cold war that a "hot spot" should erupt in the Middle East?

"How quickly a world can turn from tranquility to terrorism and how fast our priorities, national and personal, can be shifted.

"Perhaps out of the Gulf crisis will actually come a realization by us as individuals and, more importantly, by our leaders, that a true domestic energy policy needs to be developed and implemented.

"Such a policy would necessarily contain some hard choices and would doubtlessly involve a change in life styles by all of us. But I'll wager those choices and those changes would be no more dramatic or distasteful than those we face today, or with which we will continually be confronted until we develop the mindset to chart our own destiny, energy-wise, as a nation.

"The same is true in many facets of our lives. Take the current problems with the NASA program.

"I happen to be one of those persons who applaud the exploration of space. I would dearly love to see our planet from an orbiting space station. This has been, and is, a costly program, but the spinoffs from the space program have been, and will continue to be, the source of the greatest collective scientific advances in the history of mankind. Our lives are touched and enhanced every day by discoveries directly attributable to the space program.

"Now, with repeated delays in launchings and outright failures, comes the howl from some in Congress to chop the program.

"No doubt, mistakes have been made and likely will continue to be made. But how many unknown explorers sailed off the edge of the world before Columbus made his important voyage?

"And how many mistakes and delays have been procreated by a callous Congress failing to face up to the federal deficit problem? To me that is the greatest challenge America faces. When will we have the will to finally address that program in the terms of an economic war -- which is what it really is?

"Remember the old saying: 'All signs fail in dry weather.' Or wet weather. Or winter. Or summer. Or whichever situation happens to apply at a given time?

"This year's weather has stretched this saying to its limits. After a mild winter and a soggy spring, now we have had the late summer drought that has caused old-timers to shake their heads in trying to remember a similar season.

"And the old saying, 'It always rains during fair week,' really was a bust this year, wasn't it?

"The few wrinkles of rain Tuesday were the first in Gravette in a month. I had tried every tactic to get it to rain. I even washed the car a couple of times. Tuesday when I reached for the measuring stick to check the rainfall, it was so encrusted with spider webs it took 10 minutes to break it loose.

"Now that's a real sign of a failed sign."

+ + +

And so today, we still haven't let the Keystone pipeline help solve the energy problem. We pay Russia millions to send our astronauts into space. The deficit grows millions every day. And the weather goes right on being its own boss in spite of everybody trying to change or modify it.

As a people, collectively, we seem to be more interested in who wins the Super Bowl or the NASCAR races, the antics of Justin Bieber, whether or not to show our picture at the polls, or how to address the gay/lesbian problem ... more interested in those types of things instead of simplifying our obnoxious tax code, worrying about the disintegration of our family structure culture, and on, and on, and on. Everyone has his own list.

I don't plan to do this again. But it seemed just too good to pass up. Maybe you might want to try it yourself; a child or grandchild might have fun opening an envelope a quarter century from now. And shake his head. Whoops, to be politically correct, should I say shake its head?

Dodie Evans is the editor emeritus of the Westside Eagle Observer. He can be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.