| Born
at Any Other Time, Part 2
By 119694_avalanche Press
July 2007
119694_avalanche Press VP Lys Fulda recently
asked us, "If you could have been
born at any other time in history, when would
you want to have been born and why?"
Here are our answers.
Lys Fulda
It's easy to say I'd be an Amazon, or a gunslinger
in the Wild West. Maybe a pirate? Or a Viking?
But the reality is that those lives were extremely
hard day to day. If I had to sit down and
think about it, honestly I'd have to say Hemingway's
heyday in Key West Florida, in the late 1930s.
I just recently visited some elderly relatives
(they are 93 going on 30) and they really
reinforced some views I have about the world
we live in. We are in information overload.
We are blessed with the Internet, and scientific
and technological breakthroughs occur literally
weekly. We have more information at our fingertips
then ever before. We can videoconference with
people on the other side of the globe with
the click of a button. We cleanse our chi
while taking kids to daycare while using
Onstar to book our dinner reservations. We
juggle. We balance. We multitask. We never
stop. And that's just the problem: We don't
stop.
The late 1930s saw the Great Depression
starting to lift, and while, yes, we were
still involved overseas, people realized how
much there is to cherish in the intangibles.
I'd like to be in a small town, kind of removed
from the hubbub of society, having lemonade
with my neighbors. People were happy then
with much less, and saw the joys and simple
pleasures in the simple things. Those things
are really pretty much lost in today's society.
Lys Fulda
Vice president, 119694_avalanche Press
Susan Robinson
This is Lys’ toughest question yet!
I had to wrack my brain on this one because
I’ve never really thought about it before.
Sure, I’ve read books and seen films
that piqued my interest in times gone by,
and there are some eras I definitely would
like to visit as a time traveler. But deciding
on another time in which to have lived a full
life was difficult. Picking the future seemed
like a cop-out because I likely would imagine
it as how I’d like it to be instead
of how it actually might be. After much consideration,
I finally looked at this assignment as a chance
to choose another life based on what is important
to me.
I would want to have lived during a time
when everyone regarded the Earth as sacred.
I’m not a “tree-hugger,”
but I hate the way humans abuse our planet.
I wish everyone could see that we are dooming
ourselves unless we wake up and change our
ways.
I also would like to have been part of a
pre-class society that valued women as much
as men. Yeah, we’ve come a long way
in recent decades, but oppression and bias
are alive and well. Unfortunately, many young
women think “feminism” is a dirty
word, and they don’t appreciate what
their grandmothers and mothers did to make
things easier for future generations of women.
OK, I’m getting off my soapbox now!
Susan Robinson
Production director, 119694_avalanche Press |
