1st of the year

I feel vaguely obligated to come up with something profound for the "first post of the year," but I'm at a loss. I don't even know why I should feel obligated since approximately two people read this blog.

Anyway. The new year is naturally an introspective time (auld lang syne and all that) when we look back on the past. Well, how about we look back on 100 years past? What would we have to look forward to if this were January 1, 1906?

• A massive earthquake in April tops the bill.
  
• A first for our President Theodore Roosevelt.
  
• A first for football.
  
• A bad year for meat packing.
  
• And Republicans hung onto power in off-year elections. (We can only hope for better 100 years later. )

By the way, while Mercedes and Oldsmobiles were available (for a price), we would have to wait another 2 years (1908) for a ModelT. And chances are, unless you were relatively well-off and lived in a large city, you still read --if you could read-- your books (yes, books! remember those?) by candlelight or gaslamp. Also, tens of thousands of American boys who were toddlers in 1906 would grow up to die in far off fields "making the world safe for democracy." Cholera, tuberculosis, malaria and polio were dreaded deadly diseases. The "great war" in the memories of Americans alive in 1906 was the Civil War. No one had heard of King Tut, Hitler or Stalin. Palestine was a region of the Middle East under the control of the Ottoman Turks. There was no radio, no Hollywood, certainly no television, and topping the hit parade was "You're A Grand Old Flag" by George Cohan (but you had to buy the sheet music or a cylinder for your victrola).

100 years may seem like a long time until you remember Willard Scott's daily "happy birthdays" to 107-year-old Alma Butterfield or some such. Heck, just in our lifetime Al Gore invented the internet. And where would blogging be without that?