Tuesday, October 28, 1997
The Fixties -
1997
by Rick Aristotle Munarriz
([email protected])
Last year at this time I coined the word Fixties. It was my vision of the next decade as a cross between the desire for social change that characterized the 1960s with the optimistic sobriety that is so often associated with the 1950s. Tie-dyed poodle skirts? Fifties meets Sixties, hello Fixties. Much to my dismay, it hasn't caught on and now that we are one step closer to the end of the millennium I might as well make one more attempt to bring meaning to my gibberish.
It all started with a cake. Recently I lit the fourth and final candle on my son's birthday cake. I was envious of his youth. It was a knee-jerk contradiction to what life's loudspeaker was blaring in my ear. We are doomed. Crime is commonplace. Failure is acceptable. Morals have decayed like plaque picking away at gums. It's periodontal disease of the spirit. We have wedgied the fig leaves of our soul and are now freezing in spiritual nudity. Enough!
If all this is true why was I belting out a tone-deaf "Happy Birthday" in an envious twang? If the darkness is growing have my pupils dilated to the point where I am complacent with the fading bright? No! So why care? Why value youth when brittle bones will crackle as quickly as young ones when we all go under.
Maybe, just maybe, because we are not going under. Maybe all of the attention we are devoting to the preservation of eagles, profits and rain forests will ultimately tackle the most endangered species of all -- civility. That fork in the road, the one where we must choose between right and wrong, the very fork we thought ran away with the spoon, is apparently still there and reports of its rusted demise have been greatly exaggerated. Hope is not a dirty word. Society is not fatal.
I have never fancied myself a leader. Wooden podiums often splinter. Yet The Fixties are coming and if it's nothing more than a mirage to my tiring eyes, what a final sight to see as my eyelids collide. If I am the only one who sees that there is no passion in indifference, fine. If the very thought that respect and self-esteem can coexist and is the only way either one will survive is my trembling hand in relentless solitaire, deal. I never RSVP'd to decadence. I was never even invited. Pity, because after all has been said and done in, it could have used an extra designated driver. Apathy won't be mourned. And with every new candle on my son's birthday cake I won't be alone in noting how much brighter the surroundings get.
Have
a similar tale?
Talk about it in the Fribble Message Folder!
[Did you know that you can pen a Fribble, yourself? We welcome submissions from readers. Just click here and read "What's a Fribble?".]