Tube City Almanac

June 23, 2014

A Long Way Since 1964

Category: History || By T.L. (Tim) Tassone



(This is the second of three parts. Part 1 appeared Sunday.)

When we graduated from McKeesport Senior High School 50 years ago, many of us seized the challenge as a priority, and prepared for college or technical school to seek a career. Others went immediately into the workplace to start a job. Some of us worked for a while before seeking the career that was best suited for our individual lives. A number of us decided to accept the equally challenging career to manage a home in the traditional manner of our parents' generation. A few of us chose not to ever lock into any one steady job or career of any kind.

Many of us sensed that we would have to continue to be further educated in order to progress with our most ambitious careers and lives. Some of us moved on to advanced specialty education degrees or advanced vocational certifications in our fields of choice. A few of us went on to earn the highest educational degree within our fields of interest and specialization.

Many of us chose to pursue careers whether as medical providers or professional athletes, teachers or scholars, artists or entertainers, lawyers or businesspeople, engineers or entrepreneurs, military or clergy, and scientists or technologists. Some of us chose to pursue the more traditional, yet equally challenging, career choice of staying at home and managing and raising a family. A few of us took the que sera, sera approach in terms of a singular career choice.

But whether we went on to college or trade school, started working at a job, maintained a home, or never really became rooted in any one particular vocational or skilled task, every one of us had our future opportunities before us --- to model, manipulate, and manage as we saw fit.

. . .

All of us knew that the times and everything else around us would probably change more rapidly than ever before in human history. Many of us were prepared to embrace and become a part of those inevitable changes. Some of us were to become victims rather than victors. A few of us would become engulfed and extinguished by what was to be.

All of knew that we would have to begin to consider a place to set up a life and a home. Many of us chose to stay in the McKeesport, Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania area. Some of us moved to other parts of the country. A few of us decided to live and make a new home for ourselves in another country within another culture.

But whether we decided to stay here, or moved elsewhere, we sensed the need to be happy wherever we called 'home' as a part of our lives, our families, and our careers.

. . .

No matter where we have roamed, our hearts and memories should have always remained with the place we grew up--the Greater McKeesport area. Fascinating within its significant chapters of important and colorful history, McKeesport was probably unknown or under valued by most of us then and even now.

Who among us would have ever imagined that rather than relying upon and spending hours in the Open Stacks at the Library searching for facts, figures, history, and vital information--all we would ever need would be something only as big as a deck of playing cards with a bright screen and instant access to a magical, almost extra-terrestrial resource to be named the "internet" via the "worldwide web"?

Many of us hardly sensed that this thing named "information technology" (IT) could explode into a rapid flurry of speed, volume, logic, entertainment, and utility --- far beyond the Underwood typewriters and carbon paper we used to do our class homework papers and reports. Some of us sought to become ‘early adopters' using emerging information technologies to dive into the age of the computer and even use of computer-based robotics and artificial intelligence.

A few of us stubbornly resisted and then chronically struggled with adapting "IT" into our personal and professional lives and careers until the point were there was no other reasonable option. Still others of us generally failed even to this day to embrace the full use and the benefits (and pitfalls) of personal computing and the vast realm of information technology.

. . .

Indeed, there has been a amazing lifestyle shift from those days when we all enjoyed the luxury to listen to our favorite 45- and 78-rpm vinyl records and albums in our homes with our hard-wired Hi-Fi record players to now where we can establish instant access to the all that the worldwide web and cyberspace offers anywhere, anytime, any place through our personal information devices via the wireless Wi-Fi high speed data exchange system!

Not even one of us can completely avoid and deny the use and importance of Information Technology in our everyday lives. And as if we might need more proof of this, could we have imagined the array of world leaders, role models, villains, and dignitaries who do not even hesitate to use social media as their preferred method to communicate, educate, agitate, and even irritate patrons, constituents, followers, friends, and foes?

Just think about it. Our world has become unavoidably synchronized via a series of "user IDs" and "passwords" that make everything needed to work, work as well as possible. Along with vast and seemingly unlimited information accessibility and instantaneous exchange capabilities, IT has made life so much better, for the most part. Essential things such as medical care and illness treatment advancements, awareness of important historical and scientific discoveries and breakthroughs, and unprecedented personal empowerment influencing our ability to access and manage the best quality of life opportunities available.

We grew up adhering to the simple and basic credo of our parents' and grandparents' generation: Work Hard. It reflected the steadfast belief of just what it would take to make it in America. Along the way, mostly due to the advent of IT, that credo morphed into a different way of looking at the key to success: Work Smart.

But in retrospect, mostly every one of us learned, one way or another, the real key to success was to Work Hard and to Work Smart at the same time. In reality, Information Technology has given us the best possible tool to succeed by working smart, but only if we continually worked hard at it!

Whether we have already fully embraced or stubbornly excluded technology as a significant part of our lives, we've learned to cherish the value of the continuing effort at regular communications, no matter through which chosen vehicle, and everlasting friendships that endured through the past 50 years.

. . .

All of us assumed that our country would stand for and by the principles of democracy, free speech, and inalienable rights as the basis of our American society and culture. Many of us sensed that our nation would have to continue to work even harder at maintaining and exceeding those core principles. Some of us choose to disagree with some of the actions taken by our country. A few choose to actively dissent.

All of us were born into a world based on the sacred and mysterious trilogy of Mind, Body, and Spirit in our lives. Many of us stayed with God, found God, lost God, or even changed Gods to better fit into our changing lives and lifestyles. A few of us refuted the very existence of any spiritual Divine Being in our lives.

But whether we chose to believe or not to believe in a greater wisdom and omnipotence other than our mere mortal selves, we are all thankful that we have done the best we could have done in our lives to make each and every day matter in the grand scheme of things --- if for no other reason than as a legacy to give to our future generations.

None of us realized upon our graduation day in 1964, the degree of impact upon our near-term future lives via that little known, yet increasingly volatile place in Southeastern Asia that would become known as and forever remembered as our Baby Boomer generation's war. Many of us considered, chose to, or were ordered to pursue a career in the armed military service to our country. Some of us pursued such a journey or career and began by serving in Vietnam while others protested the very nature of our role there. And a few of us who served bravely and with honor in those distant and remote jungles would never again return home.

But whether we served or protested our country's actions, we eventually learned how dramatically that one event would re-shape our usual way of life via our attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs regarding the traditional American Dream.

. . .

Many of us believed that our government would have to change along with such changing times in order to best serve its people. Some of us sensed that traditional models of government would have to be replaced by new methods of government --- still holding to the very principles of our Constitution and Bill of Rights yet working harder than ever for the inevitable changes in our society.

And a few of us believed that, one day, we all would see a person of a race other than Caucasian become the most important and powerful leader of the Free World --- the President of the United States of America. And then re-elected by popular vote for a second term, as well!

But whether we agree or disagree with the basic nature of our government, we still believe in the promise, the glory, the freedoms, and the celebration of America and the American Dream. It will be one of the most important issues facing the future generations of our families.

And who among us could have possibly predicted what we would face, via so many unexpected experiences, that made us who and what we are today? Whether it would be considered as positive or negative, or somewhere in between, in the scope and scale of the balance of our lives began with our graduation day in 1964.

It is as it is.

. . .

T.L. (Tim) Tassone is a graduate of the Class of 1964, McKeesport Senior High School. Part 3 will appear tomorrow. Copyright © 2014 T.L. Tassone, all rights reserved.






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