Generations

I suppose you know that George Armstrong Custer (of Custer's Last Stand fame) cut his military teeth during the Civil War.  He graduated from West Point Military Academy the year the Civil War started.  He died in Montana in 1876 at the hands of the Sioux and Cheyenne.

You're thinkin', Wow, that was a LONG time ago.  Ancient history stuff.

No, not really.

Custer's wife lived until 1933.  My momma was 13 years old in 1933.  My daddy was 25.  Either one of them, had they met Mrs. Custer, could have had long chats with her about personal, real-life, day-to-day experiences of the Civil War.  My momma is STILL alive (she'll be 92 this year) and healthy as a horse.

Time is an interesting thing.  John loves to look at timelines.  Did you know that the Brooklyn Bridge was under construction when Custer was out west fighting the Indian Wars?  When did baseball form the National League?  1876.  Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone and made the first telephone call in 1876, the first public exposition of the electric light took place in San Francisco, Bissell patented the first carpet sweeper, and the first practical pipe-wrench was patented in 1876.  Tsjaikovsky wrote "Swan Lake," the first transcontinental train run from New York City to San Francisco took only a little over 83 hours, Colorado became a state, the James gang was robbing banks in 1876, and the first black to receive a Ph.D. from a U.S. college was in 1876.

Time is a relative thing.  The first people in the Bible lived hundreds of years.  Ever heard the term, "As old as Methusala?"  He lived to the ripe old age of 969.  Yet, the American Constitution says one has to be at least 35 years old to run for president of the United States.  Sounds young, but in 1776, that was considered old age.  Now folks are routinely living to be 90, and with stem cell research, who knows, we could get back to the 969 age!

Time puts things into perspective if we would simply study the past.  People are the bridges that tie generations of time together.