We can’t go back to the way things were

One of my most hated classes in high school was typing. It hurt when I got my fingers stuck between the keys, which I did frequently. I was never fast enough or accurate enough to please the teacher. I must have been out of my mind when I signed up for a second year of the same torture. I barely squeaked by with a passing grade.
Thankfully computers make typing so much easier. My fingers no longer get stuck between the keys of a manual typewriter that has razor-sharp knives on the undersides of the letters. I don’t have to retype a page several times because I am out of correction fluid. Rearranging sentences and changing whole words is a breeze compared to the way things used to be. This is good because I frequently switch letters around when I type. Now I just have to worry about the computer freezing up or spell-check not catching a typo.
No more typewriters biting my fingers is only one reason why I think people who want to go back to the way things used to be are nuts, or at least delusional. Sure, we all remember the carefree days of our youth. Not having any responsibilities other than whatever chores we had been assigned was bliss. Summer vacation stretched on forever.
I also remember hiding out in the barn because the adults were fighting. I remember how upset all the grown-ups were when John Kennedy died. There was the embarrassment of free lunches at school. Being made fun of was no fun. Outhouses weren’t a novelty but a fact of life. We always took the dog with us when we went out into the field so she could apprehend any snakes that we disturbed.
I remember drills at school. These were not just fire drills, but drills on what to do if the cold war turned into the enemy dropping bombs on us. Now, we walk our children through metal detectors because we mistakenly believe that they are all little criminals waiting to shoot each other. Is that really progress?
This past week I have been especially thankful for air conditioning. There was no such thing in my world way back when. Only big department stores had cool air. Smaller stores like the five and dime relied on ceiling fans. A five and dime was the precursor to a big box store but much smaller. It carried a little bit of everything and the cashiers knew everybody by name.
There was also overt racism everywhere. In some places membership in the infamous Klan was a requirement for employment. Can you imagine that happening today? Do we really want to go back to the days when a black student entering a white school is news? Or waiting to see when the next race riot would break out?
I remember taking black co-workers home after a late night shift. They would have me drop them off several blocks away because they said it wasn’t safe for me to be in that neighborhood at night. We have not eliminated racism but at least it isn’t as openly accepted as it once was. And it still isn’t safe for me to be in that neighborhood at night.
So many things have changed over the years. Some of it has been good; some, not so much. If I have learned anything at all it is that nothing stays the same. We cannot ever go back to the way things used to be.
What we can do is go forward. It is in our power to make the world safer. We can foster tolerance for all and not just those like us. If we can replace the finger-maiming typewriter with a safer, if more cantankerous, computer then we can make our world far better than it ever was before.