We don't choose the age we live in...rather, the age chooses us...enveloping, dominating, shaping our destinies - the sheer immensity of it all, the overwhelming scope, the global reach, the unavoidable impact - like the air we breathe - like a horrifying weather event - no choice for most but to endure these "storms" of history - living through wars, pandemics, upheavals, famines, revolutions, economic downturns, malaise, lost decades, years of austerity, autocracies, dictatorships, purges, reprisals, repression, pogroms, displacements, mass migrations, expulsions, coups, abdications, guerrilla wars, killings, genocides - these "dark clouds" that take up so much of history for so many...(think: Czarism, Bolshevism, Great War, Fascism, Great Depression, Franco-ism, Stalinism, Hitlerism, World War, Cold War, Peronism, Maoism....) and oppressive, unwanted, annoying tyrants, autocrats, generalissimos, monarchs, premiers, prime ministers, presidents, people's councils, parliamentary mediocrities, zealots, fanatics, gray-haired bureaucrats, countless "heads of state" that no one in their right mind would choose to govern over them (!) - leading us to wonder what counts as "clear sky" -where on the globe and when, which years and what exactly and for how long (?) Are there recoveries, restorations, renewals...Do people find solace in the wake of those afore-mentioned catastrophes?? Does progress happen here and there - albeit less dramatically? ....Are there equivalent periods of "normalcy" where we don't feel dwarfed or defined by noxious political climates that blow overhead ...?
It was several decades ago now that the rumors were swirling about a possible ghost @ Moonlight Beach. There was a definite "buzz" among the Coast Highway vendors and their customers - enough to keep the conversation rolling... Ronnie, for example, the short-order cook at the 1-11 Diner used to compare notes with Sue-Ellen - owner of the guitar shop about the latest "sighting" while Eduardo who owned the Taco Shack near the corner of D Street asked Mel who ran the old movie theater across the street if the real headquarters for the poltergeist might be in one of the older buildings - maybe an attic space. Maybe it's a ghost that goes on field-trips now and then - agreed Manny Uwanco - proprietor of the used book store and cousin to George Uwanco - the owner of George's diner. Everyone tried to convince Lou - of Lou's Records that this thing was real - but he proved to be the skeptic of all skeptics. Truth be told - it was hard to imagine a less hau...
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