Building Bridges To Draw Us Together
There are people over there whose dress and mannerisms aren't like mine. With enthusiasm characteristic of youth, they think all problems yield to hard work and intelligence. But we on this side know better.
And the chasm is time--seemingly unbridgeable, unchangeable time. I cannot go back; neither can they leap forward. Years and experiences hold us apart.
I was once as they are, deriving satisfaction in attacking difficult problems. Each challenge met put another weapon in the armory of skills for the next battle.
But that was long ago in a past they never lived. Gone are slide rules and computer punch cards that defined engineers in my formative years. The future belongs to the microprocessor and those who harness it. Fresh paradigms determine tomorrow.
One thing they lack on the far side: experience. They thirst for it; we flaunt it. And armed with experience, we over here maintain tenuous toeholds on usefulness a bit longer. Are there no bridges between us?
After no contact for more than 30 years, I've recently corresponded with Wiley Christal, a college friend and one-time co-worker. Our careers took vastly different paths, inevitably producing another sort of chasm. But I was surprised to discover a bridge.
In college, we took a brief course in FORTRAN, the bread-and-butter scientific computer programming language of the 1960s. Over intervening years, my need for FORTRAN popped up infrequently but dropped off the radar screen in the mid-80s.
Though that little course laid the foundation for much work I do today, I thought FORTRAN itself had died. Imagine my shock to learn that it endures. Wiley uses it in computer simulations for missile guidance system development. The skills we learned at the genesis of our careers now connect divergent endpoints--a bridge between us.
Those on the far side of the chasm of time often see individual achievements as stepping-stones to success. But stepping-stones alone don't make bridges. Tossing maturity and experience into the mix has a way of mortaring fragmented efforts into structures that can span the widest rifts.
Why bother? Today's news of yet another plane crash in New York City is shocking and troublesome. Has the specter of terrorism struck again? Our need to draw together intensifies. Internal chasms that fragment us must be bridged if we're to stand as one.
Many can be. In responding to recent news of last year's ballot counts, former Vice-president Gore said, "Right now, our country faces a great challenge as we seek to successfully combat terrorism. I fully support President Bush's efforts to achieve that goal."
Chasms can be bridged with the timeless values of well-learned lessons, common goals and a shared love of God and country. The white-hot iron of individual desire tempered by the waters of mature, problem-solving judgment will yield the fine steel required to confront our invisible and frightful enemies both today and tomorrow. We must pull together politically and morally to survive.
Copyright 2001 James McAlister
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