Change is Inevitable

Change is inevitable. Except from vending machines.

We put a lot of effort into figuring out how the world works and then the dang world changes. Since I live in a retirement village, I am surrounded by folks who not only dislike change, they refuse to acknowledge it. After all, their worldview has kept them alive a long time; change is an existential threat.

When I tell them “adapt or die,” they get mad at me. They passionately defend the superiority of whatever time and place where they came of age. In the ole days, they claim, people were nice, everyone had enough, the government wasn’t crooked and you could absolutely trust the evening news. They tell me about the corner drug store, where you could sit at the soda fountain and get a root beer float. Ah, the good ole Norman Rockwell days.

Of course, if you were black and tried to sit at the drug store counter, you’d get arrested, get your head bashed in or both. Let’s get real: People were people, most were nice, but some were drunks, wife-beaters and serial rapists. Walter Cronkite, the most trusted newscaster in America, probably spewed whatever BS the Powers That Be handed him. The root beer floats were good, though.

“This generation” is no worse than those generations. Most are nice and some are Aholes. Cell phones and video games won’t make young people any stupider than past generations. Five hundred years before Christ, Socrates feared that this new-fangled writing things down would make the youth stupid and destroy their ability to memorize. People don’t change much, but technology does.

This pandemic will change the world fast enough that we will notice. Things are always changing, but so slowly, we don’t notice. How will it change? Have no fear, the Powers That Be are fast at work figuring out how changes will increase their wealth and power. But do not despair!

Some times things change for the better. Slavery ended 155 years ago and eventually a black person could sit at a drug store counter and get a root beer float-(do they still serve root beer floats?)

If not, adapt or die.

Make your own:

ROOT BEER FLOAT

Ingredients

1 pint vanilla bean ice cream

2 quarts root beer

Directions

1. Hang a large, well packed scoop of vanilla ice cream on the edge of a fountain glass or other tall drinking glass. Fill the glass 3/4 full with root beer. Set the fountain glass on a salad plate, underlining the glass for overflow. Serve floats with straws and parfait spoons. When you are ready to enjoy the floats, knock the ice cream into the root beer and watch it fizz up as the ice cream floats.