 A funny story about this piece; I wrote it many years ago and forgot about it. Then a very nice illustrator named Rob Byers reached out to me to ask if I had anything for him to illustrate pro bono for my site. I gave him this piece after going through some old files. So here is an old, unpublished piece and more importantly here is a lovely illustration from Rob!
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We were all sitting around, feeling bored with school when somebody put on "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" and hit the stereo until it was on the song "1979."
"Good old Billy Corgan," said Miles. "He wrote that song for us."
We let out of a chorus of "Aw yeahs" but mine was half-hearted. It was nice to have a song for us but deep in my heart I couldn't really be enthusiastic when I didn't like the Smashing Pumpkins that much.
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Steve laughs at me but it's because he's jealous that he knows he won't make it. He's already given up. "How can you claim that you're going to live to be 97?" he asks.
"I set my mind to something and I do it," I say. "Plus, everyone knows that people die when they give up. If I set this goal early I can make it."
"Hmm." He pouts. He's probably just jealous that he'll be dead and I'll be dating someone else.
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I can claim to look down on those kids born in the eighties, but I know I'm really an imposter. When I popped out, it was only, what, 8 months until the Me Decade began. I guess technically I've been alive through, what, 5 presidencies so far, but it's so hard to count Carter. I barely remember the eighties: how can I really be a child of the seventies? I feel so lost.
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It's going to be great, seeing the tricentennial. I missed the bicentennial by just three years but this will be even better. Two hundred years is nothing at all, but three hundred years...well, you're really a country then. Almost a third of a way to a thousand years and finally you're sure to be taken seriously. I don't expect to be participating in anything grand or even being that proud of the country, but I'm sure that by then, they'll have some pretty cool ways to celebrate. Robots, maybe?
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Rob Byers
It was a pleasure thank you so much!