Well golleey Jim, at least we didn't blow the world to smithereens!. . . thanks (or so so I am told) to one Russian submarine commander.

Our legacy is a mixed bag, as it always has been from generation to generation, throughout time. Our parents--the Greatest Generation, because they drove the nazis and fascists of their time back into their holes--nevertheless were seemingly unable to retrieve their WWII detritus from a ColdWar showdown.

Happily, however, Mr. Reagan and Comrade Gorbachev were able to pull that one out of the fire before it went nukey.

And Jim, let us not forget we have passed the torch of that delicate peace. We have not blown the world to smithereens.

Our carbon-spewing exhaust pipes will certainly be tossed aside, as time goes by, for more favorable electric propulsions, and surely they will be replaced by our children and grandchildren with planet-friendly improvements.

Surely, our children will snatch our failures from the dustbin of history and convert them, Midas-like, into gold, or--if not gold--some much-improved currency of the future . . . SDRs, carbon-credits, green assets?

Boomers Rejoice! We have made it to the seventh-inning stretch.

For the southern college reminscant version of our pivotal years 1969-70, check out my novel King of Soul, at http://www.careyrowland.com.