Memory


 * This is a memory of 95 year old man Walter Gordon. He was born in 2013, a year where the earth was still doing just fine, but gloom was on the horizon. He now lives in a world significantly hotter, and with a much different climate. This is him speaking about his thoughts on society and it's failures at creating a more**

Ahh, it feels like it was just yesterday you could go outside without that sticky sun block or whatever it is that we have to lather up in. I was a young boy of seven years, and my family was headed out to the beach in Long Island. It was a beautiful day out, about 75 degrees in a mid July. If we even see 90 degrees in mid July these days it would be amazing. But anyway, my mother, my father, and me were headed out, and I was as happy as could be. I had no idea that that very same sun would one day cause cancers and sun spots over 25% of the population or whatever those damn scientists speak of. At the beach we set up shop, threw down some blankets and I jumped in the cold water. Oh how nice it was. These days we're not even allowed in most water, something about dangerous concentration of pollutants, and the overwhelming exposure to the sun. My mom and dad sat there and watched me in the water, which was about 7 feet deep if that, but hey, when you're just a tot of about 5 foot 6 it feels much deeper. The cool water was so refreshing, a deep blue, and oh it was such a nice temperature. I remember looking out into the distance and seeing one of those garbage boats, and thinking how gross and funny it was that they would put garbage on a boat and bring it out to the beach. I saw the boat going by, and I could just barely make out a stream of garbage falling off of the back of it, it looked accidental, but still very irresponsible. I had no idea that things like this would be affecting us now. All the pollution coming from this boat and boats like it have contributed to the environment we have today. Looking back at when I was a kid, and particularily to this day, it seems like it would have been so easy for us to just have come up with some solutions, are atleast follow through on some of them. We should have developed alternative fuels, cut back on pollution and all that jibber jabber. Hind site is 20-20 I guess. But it almost makes me bitter that we couldn't of tried harder. We had been making signifcant progress back in the 30's, with windmills or whatever. We even produced a new hydrogen car, but I guess the people phased it out because it wasn't fast enough. I dont know, looking back at my younger days, I guess we all thought that days like this would never come, they seemed impossibly far away, but now they are here. And the beautiful days of my past are far behind.