Historic Events

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the bar area of a restaurant in St. Paul on my day off.  I was out and about and thought 'I want a burger'.  And not just a fast food burger, a real burger.  There is something to be said about having a beer at lunch in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week.  Mad Men-ish without the killer hangover afterwards because I only had one, not four or five.  So while I was there, they had CNN on one of the televisions and then suddenly, white smoke!  

White smoke, everyone knows, means new pope.  Pope Francis.  And everyone went ape shit, or maybe not.  So it's always a historic moment when a pope is elected because once you're there, you're there until the end (mostly).  Growing up Catholic, I grew up with Pope John Paul II.  He'd been around since forever.  When he passed away it was the biggest deal for the church because he had been the pope for such a long time.  I was more intrigued by the election of Pope Benedict than I was with Pope Francis because it was the first time I had seen the process in action.  That's not to take away from Pope Francis' election, it's just that I had just seen it eight years earlier.  It was historic, however, in the fact that Pope Benedict stepped down, the first pope to do so in six hundred years. 

Being someone that loves history, I find these historic moments fascinating.  Are they historic because you think they are, or are they historic because we are told they are?  With these events, you should want to be able to have that 'I knew exactly where I was when ______ happened.'  But these events are can be person specific.  Of course you're going to have those events that everyone remembers, but there are also going to be events that happen that grab some people and not others.  One that comes to my mind is the space shuttle Columbia.  For whatever reason, I have always remembered turning on the t.v. in our college apartment and seeing the pieces of the shuttle burning through the atmosphere.  I was just sucked into the coverage.  I skipped my morning classes that day to watch the coverage.  We eventually knew what happened, but I just couldn't pull myself away from the coverage.  The weird thing is, I have never really paid attention to space travel or what NASA was doing, it just didn't interest me.  The human element at it's finest.  

These historic events do not always have to be tragedies.  I'm sure there were tons of people that will forever remember the day that Prince William and Duchess Catherine (because Duchess Kate is too informal) were married, or Prince Charles and Lady Diana for that matter.  That's not my thing, so I can say I was around for it, is that okay?  Think about sports.  There are going to be teams that make runs to the championships of their sports and there are going to be people from that town or city that will remember it until the end of days.  I thought I would remember LSSU's hockey run in the mid-90s, but I really don't.  What do I remember?  Beating Wisconsin, losing to Maine, beating Boston University.  All the in the span of three years.  I was younger, but I remember watching those games.

Historic events are such because they go down in the annals of our society.  They are events that are important not just in the moment, but for years and years afterward.  They are passed down from generation to generation.  They get written down in the history books so one hundred years from now, when everyone that will remember the event, will no longer be on this earth.  They are historic because we make them historic.  We huddle around the television and look at each other and collectively think 'I will remember this day.  I want to remember this day.'