BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Times of An Old Man—BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

 

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That’s the famous opening line of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities.

It has taken me more than two cities, more like eighteen, but I live in the best of times and in the worst of times. The 1950s is the best of times. The 1960s is the worst of times. I live in them both. Nothing since then makes much sense to me.

That doesn’t mean that good things didn’t happen for me in other decades. In the 1970s and ‘80s I got to wear leisure suits and a mint-green tuxedo. [1] In the ‘90s my daughters got married and my grandchildren were born. In the 21^st century, I’ve gotten to live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where the winters are 13 months long, thus preserving us old people with cold, the way hamburger spoils less rapidly in the refrigerator or at room temperature.

It’s easy to see why anyone would want to live in the best of times. But the 1960s, the worst of times?

Okay, I probably don’t have to go back to the ‘60s to live in the worst of times. It’s quite possible that right now is the worst of times, at least for America. Democracy is under siege and almost gone. Culture is vulgar. Hate is patriotic. Education is propaganda. The world is heating at an unsustainable rate. Yes, one could make a very good case for right now being the worst of times…

…but all these current bad times had their seeds in the 1960s. To make it even worse, we were warned about them, right then, by folks as disparate as Rachel Carson and Dwight Eisenhower, and we paid no attention.

Failing to pay attention to the warning signs always produces the worst of times.

The 1960s gave us the Viet Nam War, which in turn gave us drugs and an abiding mistrust of government and public institutions. The 1960s gave us new insight into the deep roots of racism and the perils of global warming. The assassinations of JFK and RFK and MLK showed us where a gun culture would lead. The 1960s gave us Barry Goldwater and the anti-communist domino theory, and the corruptions of Richard Nixon. The 1960s gave us Ronald Reagan and the “trickle down” economic theory and the start of the great wealth divide. [2]

In each new generation, each of these problems has gotten worse.

I live in the present age, but the present age doesn’t live in me.

On my good days, I live in the 1950s, with the joy of “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning” and the innocence of “I Believe.”

On my bad days, I live in the 1960s, with the sarcasm of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” and the warning of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Yes, here I should provide a note of optimism, but I have outlived optimism. The best I can offer is… well, it’s from the ‘60s…

Keep the faith, baby.

John Robert McFarland

1]I didn’t choose the mint green tux with the ruffled shirt. I had to fill in as a groomsman at the last minute when my associate pastor, Bob Morgan, married Nina Cogswell--thus becoming the Morwells--and the tuxedo was part of the position.

 2] Yes, Reagan was not president in the 1960s, but he was honing his war on the middle class then as governor of California.