Back in the 1990's - two jobs ago and at least one lifetime - I got hooked on a late-night radio talk show hosted by the eminently odd and interesting Art Bell. "Coast to Coast AM" brought out into the conscience of its listeners such diverse topics as UFOs, remote viewing, shadow people, Area 51, and something I've forgotten the name of but had to do with playing the actual words of people backwards and "hearing" their true feelings which were hidden in the garble and invariably contrary to what the person really said. It was a diverse collection of topics that fascinated me.
The now-retired Art had this way of using voice inflection to add weight to phrases and topics in sort of this off-handed unintentional manner. When a guest would drop a bombshell or say something really profound, Art would many times make a slow, measured outing of breath that sounded to the ear like a mixture of "ah" and "oh." When he did that, I knew he was telling the audience - probably subliminally - that whatever it was was a big whoop. With Art, you kind of had to learn to read between the lines in order to get all that was going on.
He eventually wrote several books, one of which was called "The Quickening." The basic premise of the book was that the severity and frequency of events - including weather, the economy, politics, war, basically everything - were speeding up at a rate to the point where society and civilization would be unable to keep up with them. It was a nice theory and one that sold a bunch of books for him.
You see, Art had this way of making a living off of disaster and especially of the impending kind. It was always about "six months from now" some comet would hit, or the aliens would come back via some prophecy, or some such other thing. The idea of "The Quickening" was no different. It spoke of the future and of our fate in being unable to cope with it. For the most part - although he was very entertaining - I always thought deep down Art was kind of full of it.
I'm not so sure anymore.
The weather? Does anyone think that winters are as they used to be? Back in the day, the winter season would set in with cold and snow and it would not stop until it was good and ready. Nowadays, Midwest winters are pretty mild with little to almost no snow. Sydney, Australia, recently baked in a heat wave that reached into the 110's; sea levels are rising; the ice caps are apparently melting.
The economy? Does anyone think that we have a realistic chance to EVER pay off 16 Trillion dollars?
Politics? We struggle and strain along party lines, so deeply entrenched as to make any kind of problem-solving nearly impossible. Split along socio-economic and social issue divides, we fight and fight while the structure on which we stand slowly burns.
War? We continue to randomly kill each other in the name of...who knows? Greed? Land? Religion? Can anyone ever see an end to this? Other than from divine intervention, is there some great era of enlightenment that will come to envelop us like sunshine and bubblegum and set us straight towards our fellow man? Not likely.
As a Christian, I've believed for a long time that the only thing that will save us will be some sort of divine intervention and we probably will have to take it right to the brink for that to happen. I just don't see any other way out of this mess we've made. Being humans, there was probably no other destiny for us.
Like concentric circles, we radiate outwards both individually and as groups all the while sharing a common center, and like it or not we're all in it together. Maybe "The Quickening" is inevitable, given the huge number of humans who are alive and have access to ever-growing means of simply doing "things." Modern humans have access to amazing technology and travel, while at the same time consuming more and more. It's more than likely all inevitable, this speeding up of It All. Meanwhile, the sky darkens.
Whatever Art is doing now, he's probably smiling. Maybe he fills his day with stacking sandbags outside his compound or checking on his emergency food supply. I don't know. But the man who I thought was a nut all those years ago probably had it right. We're ever more rapidly moving towards an end and there's really nothing we can do about it except hold on and try to mitigate the impact once it comes.
But Art? Before the flares go up, can you do one thing? Can you explain to me how remote viewing REALLY works?
I was there once.
As part of a family vacation to Texas in 1968 to see the World's Fair (HemisFair) in San Antonio, we made a stop in Dallas to see where it happened. I remember seeing it but not much more than that. They told me something important happened there, probably in a few simple words that flew past the short attention span of a seven year old.
Dealey Plaza was immaculate as I recall, bright and green with lawn sprinklers at the ready and running to keep "The Site" civic-wise as palatable as possible to visitors and residents alike. And I'm sure it was and is a difficult task for Dallas: Part of their city is a world-famous place of infamy, and it's not like they can plow the thing under and start over. The best they can do is keep it neat and dignified, and let it be what it is.
I don't know if that visit started my life-long obsession with the Kennedy assassination (The Elder) but it probably kick-started it, or at the very least planted a seed. The whole thing has always fascinated me, from the characters involved to the momentous turn of history that resulted from it. And then I bought my first book on the subject, "Six Seconds In Dallas" by Josiah Thompson at the old supermarket just south from the old Lincoln General Hospital.
From then on, I was truly hooked.
I purchased an abridged copy of the Warren Report and got most of the way through it, along with almost every kind of literature related to the assassination from books on the Secret Service being involved to one about Lee Harvey Oswald's mother, Marguerite, - and the completely unique world she inhabited - which I devoured while riding Amtrack back from Denver one summer. You name it, I've probably read it.
The problem with all that information is this: It's almost completely contradictory. One seemingly credible source has Oswald (you can see a 24/7 view here from the alleged sniper's window) as somehow alone planning and pulling the whole thing off; the next has conspirators behind every bush and under every street drain. One has Lyndon Johnson involved while the next brings in the Mafia, the FBI and some hybrid combination of intelligence agencies led by the CIA. It's almost intentionally maddening and designed to throw people off the track of the truth.
I've kind of gone back and forth on what I think happened so long ago in Dealey Plaza. At first I got caught up in the flurry of conspiratorial media and believed that Oswald was completely and totally framed. Now, however, I think that while certainly not alone in the act, Oswald was in some way totally up to his neck in the whole thing. Did he actually pull one of the triggers? That I'm not sure of. But did he know and was he part of it? Yes.
Now Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has come out and said that his father told him that he believed that while at the same time publicly supporting it he thought others were involved and that the report issued by the Warren Commission was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship." Shoddy and quick, I think. They started with a conclusion (Oswald) and wrote from back to start with that ending already in hand. But does any of this make any difference nearly fifty years down the road? Probably not.
I'd love to one day again visit Dealey Plaza, this time carrying the weight of adulthood and the accompanying sense of history and of things important. The 50th Anniversary of the murder will happen this fall, and how I'd love to be there along with masses filling the plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum on the site of the former Texas School Book Depository. We'll see. I know it's a place I've always wanted to see again, although were I to go back I know instead of revisiting an old haunt it would be more like seeing it for the first time.
The phone call came while I was sleeping on the afternoon of New Year's Day. I was getting some rest before going to work at the expense of watching the Huskers in the Citrus Bowl which proves to any detractors out there that I may have that I in fact DO have my priorities in order. I reached over, grabbed the phone and looked for the caller ID on the screen.
Mom and Dad.
They never call, I thought. Only when something's up. One or the other has fallen, I thought. With imposing dread, I punched the button and answered.
"Hello?"
"Kevin? Brother Dick has passed away."
Wow.
I don't remember now if Dad said "Uncle Dick" or "Brother Dick." I think he said "Brother"; it's a term of loving endearment that I've heard him use in the past for his brothers, of which he now is the last surviving one.
I instinctively knew this would be one of those moments where I'd be able to recall exactly where I was when I heard certain news. I was at the gas station during the first reports of 9-11; just coming upstairs from my bedroom when I heard the news of Bobby Kennedy's shooting; driving down Fall Creek Road when I heard of Saddam Hussein's capture; and in the hallway listening to Dad on the phone when I heard of the passing of my cousin Carl.
I know why hearing tragic and/or big news makes an imprint on one's memory: Because it's tragic and/or big news. The mind seems to understand that it's important to recall those moments and kind of takes an internal "photo" to be stored away. The fact that choosing which breakfast cereal to eat on a certain morning in May of '93 is not considered by the mind to be noteworthy is also understandable.
What is fascinating to me is how totally mundane moments from years ago can be recalled with complete clarity. For example: I can clearly picture fellow grade school classmate Jerry Stein - who, while being an OK guy, was not exactly my closest friend - crawling up on top of the jungle gym on the west end of the playground during recess. It was a blustery, late Spring afternoon. I can still see it. What is it about that particular completely nondescript moment that sticks with me after all these years? Why does my mind retain that but has forever eliminated an equally unimportant moment involving a conversation during yesterday's breakfast?
I believe it has to do with plain and simple survival at a subconscious level. Your brain knows better than you do what's important, and acts as a life filter for your existence. It knows what moments are momentous ones, and stores them away accordingly. It knows which ones will bring back a fond memory when your body has begun to fade, giving you something to hold onto and to cherish. Your subconscious knows what to carry and what not to burden you with. The rest are scattered like mental cremains along the misty pathways of your life, there but not; always present but never again to be accounted for; remaining as invisible building blocks upon which one's psychological house is built.
When will the next unforgettable moment come? No one knows. Our minds await the next experience, which may await around the next corner or in a future jungle gym of our own creation. The ability of our mind to create and recall memories is one of life's greatest pleasures, a never-ending gift as long as we keep on taking in bit by bit all that is around us.
