"Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages"
Al Stewart released his hit in 1978 – the year when I started a long string of trips which have taken me to over 50 countries. So, this time of the year I think of many Novembers, Decembers and Januarys past. Trips to Kenya, Israel, Hong Kong, India, several to the in-law’s in Ireland and them to us.
One of my poignant memories is from a trip in 1993 to California with the in-laws. Captured in digital video - get the vivid contrast - is a scene with the dog-eared, century-old baptismal register at the San Gabriel Mission. The camera zooms in on my father-in-law's register entry in 1918. Tom was born in Los Angeles to Irish immigrants to the US. Back then immigrants hardly ever went home - the trip was too daunting. His parents moved back when he was 2 and he spent a lifetime as an Irish farmer. He thought he would never see California again – and his gratitude to us for making the trip possible was touching. But Margaret and I did little – we all benefited from the 747 and succeeding wide bodies – technology which democratized global travel for millions. But Tom's gratitude brought home how much I had taken travel for granted and how much my career had been enriched by all my travel.
That California video is in a MP3 folder which also has many 0ther family videos over the last two decades, and I see my kids occassionally take a peek at their younger images and their travels. I wonder where travel will take them. They already have a siginificant head start. They got their first passport when they were months old - in contrast my first passport shows I was 20 years old.
But more than travel I wonder where technology will take them. The revelation in the last few years is technology is not only collapsing distances, it is also muddling generations. With Skype and Cisco and Vonage we have friends around the world. Friends of all ages and kinds. And long lost acquaintances are also coming back into our lives with unnerving frequency via LinkedIn and Facebook.
I wonder if my son will be curious about the masoleum in the Los Angeles cemetery in that video from December 93. The masoleum belongs to the Higgins branch of his grandfather's family. Will he want to learn more about Thomas Higgins, born in Boyle, Roscommon county in Ireland on July 12, 1844 who went on to own copper mines in Arizona. Will he use Facebook to reach out to modern day Higgins descendants? I wonder if my daughter will benefit from DNA based ancestral analysis?
But why wonder about the kids? Frank Scavo, a peer has used his curioisity and available technology to seek out his ancestral roots in Italy and join National Geographic's Genographic project. This past summer I witnessed an amazing jambalaya of technology and travel, as friends I had only met on social networks helped organize book events in Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, Vancouver and elsewhere.
Life sure has changed. Immigrants used to move long distances, establish roots and not travel every few months. You met older friends at school reunions - maybe. Technology may not be all good, but I am sure glad I have benefitted from two technology revolutions - the one which came from global aviation and the one we are seeing from telecommunications and social networks.
As Al Stewart croooned - "Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight". I am in no hurry.
