4 - Friday, July 26, 1985 - North Shore News 40 years later we’re still here FORTY YEARS after the Bomb, what can one say? The world is still here, although 40 years is a mere blip. I know. I’m only three years older than The Bomb, and it has gone by like THAT! Zip! The next 40 will no doubt be over every bit as quickly. ‘The question is whether the world can possibly change as much in the next four de- cades as it has since 1941, ‘when your correspondent popped into the scene. You don’t remember the first three years anyway. So: from the very beginning of my childhood memories, tight around the summer of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Bomb was there. It was as much a part of the world as, say, the distant moun- tains I’d seen pictures of or the oceans which were passion for endangered animals stems in some measure from the discovery that we ourselves have been endangered now for more strictly personal by Bob Hunter reported to exist. Throughout history, a mushroom had always Meant one thing, whether sacred or poisonous: or just plain edible. Now there was something called a “mushroom cloud,’’ and it hung over the whole world. “Everything has changed except our thinking,'’ said Einstein. “! am become Death... destroyer of worlds,’’ mused Op- penheimer, quoting from the Bagavad Gita. Ever since then, it has not been just Death at our left elbow, but Extinction itself. Vd argue that the modern than a. generation. We should be able to relate, as they say. There are moments when 1 suspect that The Bomb is a curse that we brought upon ourselves for some crime, maybe against nature, maybe against God. This is probably just a typical Catholic guilt reflex. We've been so bad God MUST be on our case! In buoyant moments, I see the possibility of The Bomb’s arrival in our midst being a cosmic test of some kind. If we can manage to not fumble the thing, we can learn to defuse it, and in so East is east, west is west From Page 3 The selection slip carries the warning: ‘Only | the selections recorded .by the central computer system participate in the game.’’ this warning does not specify where the ‘central’ computer system is located, ‘encompassing only B.C. or alt of Canada. AB.C, ticket states in fine print on’ the back that a winning ticket must be pres- ented to a British Columbia Lottery’ Corporation on-line tetailer. An Alberta ticket, however, states that a winn- ‘ 12 inches Pte ing ticket must be presented to a Western Canada Lottery Foundation on-line retailer. A problem for uninform- ed clients playing 6/49 in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba and returning to B.C. is that B.C. broke away from the Western Canada | Lottery Foundation in April, forming an independent region. Nowhere on the Alberta ticket does it say that Alber- ta, Manitoba are the three pro- vinces which make up the ‘Western region. . PIZZA This is a permanent offer. PLUS: : f i FREE 3 02. cookie with every order 50¢ Delivery Charge with all small pizzas order 985-0636 Fastest delivery on the North Shure Saskatchewan and ° Poleschuk said the B.C. Lottery Foundation publish- ed a story on the invalid cashing of lottery tickets in other provinces in its July 11 edition of Luck magazine, with the headline, ‘East and West can’t meet’. doing, just incidentally learn, finally, how to live in peace. This, of course, is pure problems-are-oppor- tunities reasoning. In either case ~— curse or cure — it is hard not to con- template The Bomb without also contemplating the thought of divine interven- tion — or non-intervention, for that matter, since either possibility is fraught with implication. I’m not an Armaged- donist, by the way. Quite the contrary, my opinion is that we probably inched past the worst of the nuclear crisis years ago, and that the distinct possibility looms, not of doom, but of a Gold- en Age. Obviously, no mat- ter how carefully one tries to examine such an optimistic idea, there is bound to be a huge amount of wishful thinking involved. It does remain that actual Soviet and American nuclear stockpiles are down con- siderably from their peak 25 years ago, the Americans more so than the Soviets. This has been in response to the development of smart missiles, which can be much more specifically targetted. The big hydrogen blockbusters don’t have much military value. Or so goes the military line of thought. But how am 1] to really say that some Supreme-style Being isn’t out there, nudging us along? | Now that the idea of Nu- clear Winter has acquired the hue of a scientific truth, and we have all been mind- bombed by images of multi- ple nukes going off in such - media events as -The Day After, the only: surprise, it seems to me, is how drearily familiar this all seems. “401-1112 Lonsdale Ave. North: Vancouver » 986-4321 An Autoplan reminder — An incorrect rate classification can invalidate your Autoplan insurance. If you drive to or from work or school, your vehicle must be insured in rate class 002 (not 001—pleasure only). Be sure your vehicle is rated in the right classification for its use. From the very beginning, The Bomb meant The End, didn’t it? It held out the threat of total apocalypse, nothing less. Thus its mesmerizing power. I would suggest that there are quite a few of us around who are astonisned to find ourselves still unnuked, all these years later, approaching middle age. In a sense, the world seems all the more precious because it has survived so long on borrowed time. I | thought the 50s were IT, frankly. Yet today, I don’t see IT on the horizon anywhere. This will sound quaint, to say the least, but [ used to have recurring dreams of the world in radioactive ruin — and | haven’t had one for at least ten years. An_ intuition? Material emerging from some hidden collective consciousness through the format of the dream state? Carl Jung would have said’ so. Most everybody else would say: Baloney! But you never know, do you? In any event, we ARE still here. A round! Put it on my card. Someday The Bomb will be ancient and abandoned. Heaven knows what weapons will replace it. But why brood prematurely? kind of anti-matter Life begins at 40. Isn't that the expression? Cheers. A GOOD JOB? 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