How is it that 19 years seems like the blink of an eye?
The fact that it turned cool, windy, and wet around here the past few days actually caused me to have a very strange moment of deja vu yesterday. I was standing next to the big window in the front of the station, taking a break from staring at a computer screen by watching the cars go by and listening to the very unique sound that comes through the window when they drive by. I don't know what the window is made of, but when a car drives by on a wet day it makes a sound that's almost like a “swoosh”, if that make any sense.
Not that that matters. I apparently haven't heard that sound for quite a while, because when I heard it yesterday I immediately flashed back to the first time I heard it, which was also an October day, although this time back in 2002. And that's when it struck me--
It's been 19 years since I started working in this building.
I first heard the sound in October 2002 when our late founder Joe Blake decided that it was time to move from the drafty, dusty, yucky place we had in Ishpeming to a newer, more computer-friendly building in Marquette. I was the first person to start working here, if only because I had to get all kinds of work done on our new computer system before the real computer experts showed up. Since I still had all the stuff I was doing at the old station occupying my days I would come down here at night or on the weekends to work. And since during those times there was no other noise competing for my attention, that's when I first heard the “swoosh” of tires on wet pavement through the front window.
Nineteen years ago.
It's funny; right about the time I realized I first heard that sound 19 years ago I came across a meme on social media that said something along the lines of “I'm not comfortable with the fact that 20 years ago was 2001 and not the 1980s”. That's basically the same reaction I had when hearing the “swoosh” and figuring out how long ago it was I first heard it. It does not seem like 2002 was 19 years ago. It seems, at least to me, that it was five or six or, at the most, ten years ago.
But twice that? Sigh...despite what a great British philosopher said ll those years ago, time is NOT on our side.
I don't think I'll be working here in another 19 years. Heck, I don't even know if radio as it currently exists will be around in another 19 years. But if for some strange reason I find myself in the window of this building in 2040 and I hear that “swooshing” sound from passing cars or hover-cars or whatever we're driving them, you can be sure the first thought going through my head will be...
“There's no way it's been 19 years since I remembered hearing that sound back in 2021”.
No comments:
Post a Comment