LAST EDITED ON Dec-31-19 AT 11:29 PM (EST)
Twenty years ago right about now—as the world remarked to itself that, it having been the year 2000 in some parts of the world for a few hours now, nothing seemed to be happening to the computers—I was in the garage apartment at my grandparents' old place in Oxbow, working on... something? The original Aegis Florea, maybe? We had watched the New Year celebrations from London on CBC earlier in the evening, as by 11 o'clock my grandparents were long since asleep, and I don't recall taking specific notice of when it turned midnight in the time zone where I actually was. There wasn't a TV upstairs, and I wouldn't have gone down and turned on the one in the living room with Gram and Gramp in bed.The 1999-2000 transition was not too momentous for me. I was back from California and living in Waltham by then; I'd have to dig out my resume to remind myself which of the largely interchangeable doomed tech companies I spent that period working for I was on at the time. We were closing in on the end of the regular series of Neon Exodus Evangelion (the last episode to come out in 1999 was 3:7). Symphony of the Sword wouldn't happen for another year and a bit.
That was the last Christmas-New Year I spent in Oxbow, although I didn't know it was going to be at the time. I didn't make it up there the next year, and in 2001 they abruptly sold up and moved closer to (but still not into) the nearest town that had a hospital. I think about that sometimes, how you don't always know that the last time you do something is the last time you'll be doing it.
Not directly related to the above, a random musing about 2020:
Back in the 1970s sometime, there was a secondary feature in a few Superman comics featuring the Superman of the year 2020. I'm pretty sure he was meant to be the original Superman's son, although who his mother was never came up. It didn't really matter, because he was presented as exactly like the regular Superman of the day, just in stories set in that unimaginably distant future year, 2020. I only dimly remember the stories now, but one thing I distinctly remember is a scene in which Superman saves a rich person from jetpack bandits who were trying to carjack (although that word was unknown when the story was written) his flying Rolls-Royce, as one does. They weren't after the car itself, though; they were after the Lincoln Memorial penny the rich man was carrying, which, the narration solemnly assured the reader, was the most valuable collector coin in the world.
And of course there was Cyberpunk 2020, which I played when I was 19. The funny thing is that at 19, I couldn't really imagine being 46, but at 46, I can easily imagine being 73. I dunno if I'll make it there, we can't predict these things, but I have no trouble envisioning what it'll be like if I do.
Only 12 years until Bubblegum Crisis becomes a period piece!
--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.