Are you paying attention?

[SSScout]

When my son Joseph was much younger (he earned his Eagle, and is now a strapping young man of 26),  I was helping him one night with his homework, he said to me, "dad, you had it easier than me in school."  I said, what do you mean? He replied, "you had alot less history to remember !" 

I had to agree with him. And so he became interested in the history I had lived thru, that I had actually seen. 

I have to plead guilty in not asking more questions of my parents and grandparents. The "elders"  I grew up with, who knew the world I inherited.

My grandparents lived thru the flu epidemic of 1918, read the newspapers about Charles Lindbergh flying  the Atlantic in 1927. My mom watched the dirigible Hindenburg fly over Boston on it's way to Lakehurst New Jersey in 1937. A distant cousin was Captain of the Hindenburg.  Years  later, she and dad watched (and with a young version of me laying on the floor) a fuzzy tv screen as Neil Armstrong stepped off a metal ladder onto the Moon.  That is a "life stretch", from biplanes and dirigibles to space travel.....  My dad had other "stretches" to share, to think about. 

History is made, remembered and forgotten by PEOPLE. Often the people we know. 

How about you?  Can you ask your folks, your "elders"  about their "Life Stretches"?   Are you "paying attention" to the history you have seen?  Lived thru? Inherited?   What can you tell  your children and grandchildren (we hope !) ?

As the philosopher reminds us....  "those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".   Will you say YOU have learned anything from our history?

Good Scouting to you, safe journey home.....