We’re just over half way through the year and already it seems like the dominate theme for this year is “the end of an era”. From people who have died, to people who have been caught, to long time government programs ending, companies closing, and movie franchises coming to a close, it seems a lot of things are coming to an end.
Some of the endings we have seen this year include Elizabeth Taylor passing. The woman was an icon of Hollywood of a different time who seemed to never stay entirely out of the limelight, at least not for very long.
Osama Bin Laden being located and killed. So maybe 10 years is a short era, unless of course you are one of the many school children who have grown up being taught how bad and “evil” this man was. What do they do now? Who do they fear now? There is great danger here. These people are now ripe for the picking by any fear monger with an agenda and a plausible enough argument.
The Harry Potter movie franchise coming to a close. Yes, the book series was already complete well before the last movie and that was an ending of an era all it’s own. What an amazing thing those books have done, creating a whole new generation of readers and enticing adults back as well. The movies though have allowed a generation to grow up along with the story’s characters. And in a way that, in spite of it’s “magical” setting, demonstrates that some things are just a normal part of growing up. The books and movies have set and broken all kinds of records even making an Author one of the richest people in the world. Now Harry and all his friends have grown up. It seems the one bit of magic it couldn’t get to work was on the retail side of the publishing industry.
Yes, after 40 years Borders Books and Music is going out of business. Not just the large number of stores closing. They are going away completely. There are lots of reasons it is coming to this and they all essentially come down to several poor business decisions. That doesn’t make it any less an end of an era. Remember when you could go out to dinner, a movie, and then to Borders and close the place down? Ok, so maybe only my family did that. With chairs all over the place and the cafe and sometimes live music, it was a great place to hang out. And no one seemed to care if you spent five minutes or five hours or if you sat there the whole time and read a book. People would have book club meetings, chess club meetings, study groups, writer groups, all sorts of things like that, so now where do they go? This ending is depressing because I’m not sure it had to happen. Borders’ direct competitor adapted along the way, sometimes a bit faster than Borders and they stand to gain the most from the ending of this era.
Then there is the most tragic of the endings of eras, the end of the Shuttle Program. Although the plan is to turn manned space flight over to the private sector and NASA will continue to launch rockets and probes and work on a long distance vehicle with the hopes of going to Mars, for many people the end of the Shuttle Program is the end of the U.S. Space Program. The Space Race is over and the U.S. forfeited.
There are many who say that it was expensive and a waste of money especially with the current economic situation. Expensive, I will grant you and there are/were probably things that could have been done to mitigate that. A waste of money? Not at all. The social capital, the bragging rites, the cool factor of Americans going into space several times a year and Americans launching the vehicles that would take them there; that alone is worth the price. It is something a country can get behind and get excited about and be Proud of. And let’s face it we haven’t had a lot to be proud of lately. Oh, we elected a “mixed race” President. Ok, and that was a positive and upbeat thing for about a month before the negativity and bashing became prevalent. No, the manned Space Program along with the continued launching of shuttles and Astronauts from U.S. soil created pride, excitement, and fueled the imagination in a way that crossed generations, socio-economic lines, ethnic lines, gender, and education level. And the economic situation the country and the world are in is the perfect time for such a program to continue. It brings hope, pride, and something to shoot for.
Certainly the program had its deficiencies but that doesn’t mean it should have been ended completely, and in this manner, at this time. The Suttle Program has fallen pray to the same ax of all the other “every man” programs our government has supported. The end of the Shuttle Program turns out to not just be the end of the era of manned Space Flight in this country it is also the end of the era where we have a government that is “for the People”.
Usually, as the saying goes, “when one door closes another opens”. Perhaps, with so many doors closing, and the ending of so much, that means there are some amazing things to come.