What would be interesting would be to take another class from the same school - day the class of 1970 - who had both a 40 and 50 year reunion before CV and compare. Don't know how you could come across that info unless the school has records of who organized the reunions for 2010 and 2015
There is an uptick in deaths in the 60s, but these numbers seem awfully high.
Somewhat on-topic: I was listening to a hospice nurse share stories. (IIRC, it was about the difference between older and younger people as they approach death). She had one patient who was at the end. He wasn't particularly religious and, on the younger side, so he was having a harder time of it. She said her goodbyes and was in iher car, when she very clearly heard this guy's voice in her head telling her he didn't know how beautiful it was going to be. She has to pull over because she got so emotional. Sure enough, she got the call that the guy had just passed.
We have the ability. We just need to listen to it.
This. It amazes me how kids don't have chores. I try to think when this happened and if I had to guess, it would be the 90s when the push that "you must go to college or you will be nobody in life" ramped up, especially with the initial web boom in the late 90s. All of a sudden "good" jobs "required" a degree and the fear of being left out meant that kids had to devote 110% to school. It is laughable. I worked and went to school and somehow managed. The point of work at a young age is that you learn the basic skills. Like show up on time.
I heard something a few years ago that something like 50% of Gen X had a job in high school - even if it was just a summer job. Now it is less than half that. Looking back it is now clear that much of this was intentional, but that doesn't make the current situation something that is a lot of fun to deal with. We had a kid recently who was hired as a project coordinator (construction industry) who if he had done well, could have been promoted to project manager within 12-24 months and would be earning 6 figures. He up and quit last week and everyone was surprised because he had appeared to be happy. He wouldn't talk to anyone but sent a long text to the CFO about how things really needed to change, he was worried about what could happen to rhe company. Dude had been there 10 days. Um, if you just decided it wasn't for you, just say it. But what I think may have happened is he was afraid to fail. Which was a lesson we all need to learn at one point, but we really can't wait for you to be 35 before you do.
NBA should raise the basket height. In the 40s, the average height of a player was 6'2", and today it is 6'7". The basket is still 10 feet.. Raise the basket a foot to compensate. (I know people will say "boring," but I think it would make the game more interesting.)
Back in the day, my student ID card had my student ID number on it and could be used around town if you wrote checks - it was your SSN. I came across an old box of checks from that era and all the checks I wrote in town had my SSN on them. Kind of wild. But it wasn't a problem.
I don't remember this incident, but apparently it took place in September of 2014. If you do a quick search, this story is on multiple platforms today, but I went back to see what was happening at the time. Came across a year in review piece. No mention of it in the timeline at all. The only mention of anything in September is Eric Holder's resignation.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/09/04/us/2014-in-review-fast-facts/index.html
( how many 2014 incidents still are in the spotlight in one fashion or another.)
A very decorated K9...hmm....
Walter Kirn said this to Matt Taibbi in their podcast last week when addressing this very issue. "Why are you focused on old stuff? Well, I’ll tell you, for the same reason then, when I want to pull a tree out of my yard, I don’t pull the top branch. I pull the root."