Wednesday, January 19, 2000
Wednesday, January 19, 2000 |
| Tempus
fugit By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE THE DECADES DILEMMA A columnist can't help getting a bit puffed up when she discovers that she had anticipated a new-century quandary years before it occurred. With minimal editing, I present again for your consideration a piece published in the summer of 1993, and urge you to put some thought to its question. Folks, we have a dilemma here. We are facing a far more serious “Whatizit” than that inane blue squirt that is supposed to represent Atlanta's Olympics. Depressing as that thing is, we're stuck with it for only four years at the most. [Didn't that prophecy come mercifully true?] The enigma I'm concerned about will be with us for decades. And that's it: Decades. What are we going to call the first ten years of the 21st century? Each decade takes on characteristics that will evermore be linked with that period in our history, like it or not. Ask anyone over 60 or so about the 1930s. Even people who don't clearly remember the Depression years were marked indelibly by parents who made do and scrimped and sacrificed just to get by. What image does each decade conjure? The answer varies, I suppose, according to who you are and how old you are. I took a brief and absolutely unscientific survey of friends and relatives in their own fourth and fifth decades. What pops into your mind when you think of the `20s?, I asked. Flappers, they said. The Charleston, prohibition, Harlem at its best — “The Roaring `20s.” The `30s? The Depression, FDR, and a characteristic style of clothes. And the `40s? World War II, and the rebuilding of lives in its wake. Women in the work force and shorter skirts, said my daughter, a 30-year-old professional. Victory Bonds, said her father. Consider the `60s: A time of radically changed priorities, the coming of age for most of today's movers and shakers. The Kennedy era, flower children, civil rights, Vietnam, protests. “Make love, not war,” murmured a friend with a faraway look in her eyes. Me, I was too busy changing diapers to worry about changing the world. My coming-of-age decade was the `50s, the one now labeled by some sociologists the “Me-first” years. This was Korea, the war we try to forget, and a period that many feel defined American “family values,” whatever that means. My daughter construed “Leave it to Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet” as propaganda to get women back in the home. Same daughter tagged the `70s as her own coming-of-age decade. (“I want my money back!” she wailed.) Others called it the “nothing” decade, and mentioned disco. The `80s will forever be “the Reagan years,” a period of national embarrassment for many. “Get what you can, characterized by Nancy Reagan,” said one of my respondents. I am among those who believe America's international pre-eminence withered away in the vacuum of leadership and morality that beset the `80s. [Little did we know then...] Middle-aged folks can easily remember people talking about the “Gay `90s,” meaning the 1890s. If this century's last decade goes down as “gay,” I'm afraid it will have nothing to do with light-hearted frivolity. No one knows where this one [the 1990s] is going yet, my friends concluded. It will be a decade of changes, especially where the economy is concerned. “Old solutions no longer apply.” What did they call the years between 1900 and 1910? I'm not sure I ever heard reference to the first decade of [the 20th] century, and I doubt if the second one was called “the teens.” The word “aught” was in vogue early in [the 20th] century — but did our grandparents call those years “the aughts”? The word is archaic today; I can't imagine using it in the next century. “Styles of the Aughts”? Naah. Doesn't work. Besides, it's a non-word that my Webster's says resulted from a faulty separation of “a naught,” meaning “nothing.” My elders referred to “the turn of the century.” Perhaps that covered the first few years of the 20th. But I seldom hear it used today to indicate the immediate future. (Some trivia here: Until about 1955, the British meant something quite different when they said “turn of the century.” According to journalist Bill Bryson, the phrase referred to midcentury, when the first half turns into the second half.) When our grandparents said, “the 1900s,” did they mean the first decade or the whole century? “Back in oh-four” sounds right, even though it isn't. Should be “zero-four” — “oh” is a letter. Someone suggested that, the zeroes. “Songs of the Zeroes” on a book of pop tunes? “The car of the Zeroes.” Lacks something. Lacks anything. Time's flying, and we have to get a handle on it. Reporters, historians, fashion analysts, the nostalgic — we all need a way to refer to a decade which will inevitably take its place alongside the others. For better or for worse. [Hmmm.]
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