Age is the hot topic across the country... at least for the remarkably few people who are paying attention to politics and the inexorable decline of our two major party candidates for the presidency. And since I turned 74 just yesterday (I am a day late with this post), I suppose I have spent more time than I should on the topic of aging.
In July of 1950, Harry Truman was president and also busy being born on July 12 was Eric Carr, who become the drummer for KISS. He died in 1991. So it goes. Just a week prior to my entrance, Private Kenneth Shadrick was the first American soldier killed in the Korean War. Also on July 5, the "Law Return" passed, which guaranteed the right of all Jews to live in Israel. That was the end of any controversies in Palestine, thank goodness.
On July 19, the New York Yankees signed their first two Black baseball players: Elston Howard and Frank Baines. I would later have both their Topps baseball cards and would never give a single thought to their race (or what they must have endured). At some point while I was in England in the Air Force, my mom cleared out the shelf in an upstairs bedroom where a large box of baseball cards were stashed. Old news.
On July 27, 1950, President Truman promised aid to Taiwan. And that was the end of any controversy about that island.
Being born in 1950 helped out my parents, I would guess, as my dad would not be drafted during the Korean War due to having a family. They doubled down on this protection by adding brother Mike less than two years later, though my mother always said she wanted "Irish twins" and the fun of having two young children to dress alike, etc. I am quite certain that the idea ended up being more fun than the reality.
I was born in Mercy Hospital, which still exists but has now been taken over by University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. My mom claimed that I was the first baby delivered by our long-time family physician Dr. Charles "Chuck" Eicher. He delivered 2,682 after me. He was just 26 in 1950, and got married that year, which is irrelevant but a reminder of how young he was. I continued getting occasional physicals and assorted medical care (minor bone breaks, illnesses, etc.) until his retirement in 1991. He passed in 2009, age 85.
Kathleen and I still have a bowl he gave my parents as a wedding present. I guess Barb and Jack were friends... or maybe Dr. Eicher was just making an investment to insure that all eight Kennedy kids would be born under his watch. As Kathleen points out, the bowl must have been stylish then, but it didn't stand the test of time. It is some weird shade of green with scalloped edges and we retain it because... we don't really have a good reason.
Similarly, there is no good reason to search through history for significant events from 74 years ago, though it is good to be reminded that "stuff happens," whether we are actively participating or not. It's also bracing to realize that a lot of things haven't changed all that much in nearly 3/4 of a century or that "ancient history" really is within my lifetime.
We haven't quite "solved" racism in America. Israel and the simple fact of a person being Jewish can still be a life or death situation. Taiwan continues to be in the middle of Great Powers pulling and pushing. The world will never rid itself of men who long for authoritarian power (and 1950 came just five years after the free world defeated Hitler).
And on we go.
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