Cover Ups
So like I'm pretty old, right? So I remember the "fall of communism". I remember 1989 crystal clear. 20 years old it was one of the best years. I was newly independent, trashed with the two jobs I held and in my third year of a degree program I loved. So lucky, and happy, hopeful. I could do things and I loved that a lot.
I remember when The Wall fell.
What I remember is the celebration of it the following summer. That July and August my summer in the UK. An archaeological dig and new friends to pass the time. Lucky ever more. The dig program began with many having come from the celebration concert in Berlin backpacks weighty from the pieces of graffiti'ed concrete. The Wall undone.
In only three weeks this end would prove itself nothing but an intercession. I stood at the Tie Rack in Victoria Station behind three ladies in their burquas. Their credit cards declined. Arguing most vigorously as, apparently, Kuwaiti ladies in burquas do when they can't expeditiously secure a new scarf due to a turn in the tide of world politics. There was no end. Kuwait had been 'invaded' and the red menace had been replaced with a fresh foe.
All this revelry is depressing the hell out of me. It seems like all it took was those four weeks in the summer of 1990 to unearth interminable strife that will stay with my children into their twenties. Lame, civilization. Lame.
I remember when The Wall fell.
What I remember is the celebration of it the following summer. That July and August my summer in the UK. An archaeological dig and new friends to pass the time. Lucky ever more. The dig program began with many having come from the celebration concert in Berlin backpacks weighty from the pieces of graffiti'ed concrete. The Wall undone.
In only three weeks this end would prove itself nothing but an intercession. I stood at the Tie Rack in Victoria Station behind three ladies in their burquas. Their credit cards declined. Arguing most vigorously as, apparently, Kuwaiti ladies in burquas do when they can't expeditiously secure a new scarf due to a turn in the tide of world politics. There was no end. Kuwait had been 'invaded' and the red menace had been replaced with a fresh foe.
All this revelry is depressing the hell out of me. It seems like all it took was those four weeks in the summer of 1990 to unearth interminable strife that will stay with my children into their twenties. Lame, civilization. Lame.
Labels: history of civilization, macro-holic
posted by mo-wo at 8:18 p.m.
5 Comments:
Man, you must be fairly old.
So do you still have bits of the wall?
I get it.
Chris, who was in Prague at the time, sent me a photo of thousands of people protesting communism in a big square, noting that if I squinted I could see him. Maybe his experience of the political change included more alcohol than yours?
That summer, I will add, single malt scotch a healthy dram 65p!!!
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