30 Years Ago.
Anita had gone to bed. She was in her third trimester with our daughter Savannah. Alison was asleep in her bed, but I just couldn’t tear myself away. I was sitting in our living room in Greenville, SC watching the news from Berlin. After months of unrest, it was happening. Multitudes of people had gathered at the Berlin Wall to take President Reagan’s words to heart, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
What Gorbachev could not do they were. A wall that had stood for decades, that had kept friends and families apart, that had stood as the visible dividing line in the Cold War was being taken down by students and housewives and men with hammers and axes. The Berlin Wall came tumbling down.
Earlier this year as we visited Alison in Washington, DC, where she teaches students who will study this night in history class, she took us to the Newsuem, where a piece of that wall stands. It is a reminder of what used to be.
A section of the Berlin Wall at The Newseum in Washington, DC
Last Night.
I was sitting upstairs in our home in Nova Scotia. Anita was downstairs fixing jambalaya—a great warm dish on a snowy evening. I heard voices outside, and then steps on our porch and then the doorbell rang. We weren’t expecting anyone.
I ran down to open the door to see two young people standing there in the snow. My first thought was they were collecting for a charity, or maybe having car trouble. But then he said, “I know this sounds strange, but I grew up in this house, and wondered if we might come in and see it.”
The next few minutes were an absolute joy as we heard him reminisce about growing up in our house. Even more, we learned how much the house has changed. “This was a bathroom, and this wall wasn’t there.” “This was my sister’s room and there was a long hallway running here.” “The basement was finished and my mother’s office was here, and my dad had a bar in here with a TV…” “We used to sled down the hill and I run into the porch.” “We had a fireplace here because I remember falling on it.”
He is a senior at Acadia, soon to graduate in biology and sociology. As he left we invited his parents to come by when they are up to see him. I hope they do. the porch his father built needs some repairs.
It was so much fun hearing his memories, but even more learning our history—how things have changed; learning how things haven’t changed.
This Morning
This morning I got up and went through my Saturday morning routine. I poured my coffee, read emails, checked Facebook, checked Twitter, read my online papers, had a second cup of coffee and fixed my pancakes while I waited for Scott Simon to do his essay on Periscope. Today it was about the 30th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall.
He finished by remarking that 30 years ago we celebrated a wall coming down. Today there are those who want to celebrate the building of another wall—this one in America.
30 years ago as I went to bed remember saying to Anita, “Our children will grow up in a very different world.”
I was right.