The on-ramp

We have “verb-ized” a lot of tech names: xerox, google; in essence, we turn the brand into a verb.

Pretty soon, we will “chrome” things i.e. from 0 to 65 miles in 6 seconds, getting to the on-ramp of the web.

The need for speed.” You’ve got mail ” now a thing of the past.Talking about the past.

40 years later, I saw coffee-table books on display, both about “man on the moon” (NASA) and

people on the bus (Woodstock).  I remember getting in long line, just to see the “back from the moon” rock display at the then, Vietnamese-United-States of-America Society. I am sure I was wearing bell-bottom pants at the time.

Rock music was part of our adolescence: The Beatles, then the Bee Gees.

Forever Young, as Dylan would ballad.

Or as Neil Young closes out his CD collection with “keep on rocking, for it’s a free world”.

Yet, it’s the same USA, but we have less confidence now than during  those two decade-defining events: we are not enthusiastic about new frontiers , nor do we participate in any of the “peace, love and music” type of gathering (where men are shirtless and  women in Renaissance dresses) .

That generation was more opened to both a new  frontier of the mind as well as of the universe.

I remember seeing a movie in which two characters keep talking the whole time, and the dialogue made sense.

Imagine  showing that flick to today’s 15-second commercial driven attention span.

We do need an O/S that helps us ramp up because time is running out on many of us who took time to ride the bus,

share the land, and “ask not what your country can do for you”. Man, nobody is wearing a watch any more (it’s included in the cell phone or smart phone). No wonder, they don’t bother giving anybody the time of the day. It’s not the watch.

It’s the conversation, the connection and the community of fellow human being on the bus to Eden reclaimed. I saw an U-Haul back stage of  Woodstock pictures. It started out by a college couple who wanted

to move one-way, and in need of renting a truck. In college, if we need to go home, we just have to look up rides on the Student Union Building bulletin board. And the driver might be a Ph.D. candidate from Korea, or  Maryland farmer’s son.

What matters is that we were young, courteous, and loved our college football team. Mine happens to be Nittany Lion.

And our god, Joe Patterno. And my classmates: the sleepy football players fresh from the field. Ask not what the team can do for you.