An eye-opening time travel

I had a dream the other night that I went back in time to 1964 to talk to a group of high school seniors.

I told them about the future.   I told them we had a black president – – his name is Barrack Obama.  They were pretty shocked.   I told them that whites were a minority in the United States.  That Hispanics were the largest minority group.   They had a blank look on their faces.   What’s a Hispanic, they asked?

I told them that Martin Luther King Jr. would win a Nobel Prize and that we had a big monument to him in Washington DC.    Really, they asked?  Yeah – and our first black president is also a Nobel Prize winner.

We’ve got telephones that take pictures and are so small you can carry them around in your back pocket.   Cars that park themselves and cruise ships which can carry 5000 people to Alaska.

You’ve got all that, they asked?  Yeah – – and more, I responded.   We’ve got electric cars, giant windmills and they finally completed the interstate highway system.   You can drive coast to coast and never have to stop at a red light.    A traffic jam, maybe – – but not a red light.

Did we go to war in Vietnam, one of them asked?  Yeah – – sure did, lost 50,000 young men.   What happened?  – – We left.

We’re at war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, now I said.

What about Russia, they asked?  Did we have World War III?   – –  No, not really, I replied.  Russia imploded from within, lost half its territory and now its a second rate country ran by a group of thugs.

We won the cold war then, they asked?

In a sense, I replied.   Now we’re worried about China.    What about China, one asked?

They’re our biggest trading partners – – and we owe them trillions of dollars – – while they steal our greatest business and government secrets.

You think that’s something?   Wait until I tell you that marijuana is legal in some states, and gay people can legally get married.   Queers can get married, one of them asked?    – –  We don’t use that as a negative term anymore, I said.

Did we go to the moon, one asked.   Yes, I replied.  We went there four or five times.   We haven’t been back in 45 years.   There wasn’t anything there to see.

We also have universal health care, I said.   If you don’t buy it you get fined.   Guess who collects the fine?  The IRS

I’m not sure  I want to live in the 21st Century, one of them said.

It’s alright, I replied.  You get used to it.