If youâve done any traveling in your life, you see that folks do things differently in other lands. Some of the difference seems interesting and fun, but there are also differences that make you glad to skip back home, where folks do things ârightâ again. âWhat are those people thinking?â you think. âHow can anybody behave like that and think itâs OK?â
Thatâs the beauty of traveling miles away to a foreign country. You can always come back home if you donât like it.
But the past is a foreign country, too. They do things differently there.
I didnât invent that notion. Those words were spoken by the British writer L. P. Hartley. And although old L. P. did a lot of things differently from me because, after all, he was British, he was right about that. The older you get, the more you come to realize that the past is a foreign country. At least, itâs a foreign country to young people who never lived there.
Of course, to an older person, itâs the present that feels foreign. But unlike international travel, the problem with time is that you canât just hop on a plane and fly back âhomeâ to the past, where things feel normal to you again. No, when it comes to time, with increasing age you become more and more an immigrant to the land of Now. And you know how folks feel about immigrants.
I thought about that the other day when I was flipping through a newspaper and saw a photo of that giant 26-foot-tall statue of Marilyn Monroe that once stood in Chicago. She strikes the iconic pose from her film âThe Seven Year Itchâ with her dress billowing up behind her. I liked the statue because⌠well, itâs a testament to the Windy City. Yeah, letâs go with that.
Anyway, the statue left Chicago and has been bouncing around the country over the past several years, and now itâs heading to Palm Springs, California â and not everybody there is happy with it.
Palm Springs Art Museum director Louis Grachos frowns when museum visitors, particularly schoolchildren, stare up at Marilynâs backside and underwear as they stand between her legs. âWhat message does that send to our young people, our visitors and community to present a statue that objectifies women, is sexually charged and disrespectful?â he says.
And if youâre a citizen of The Now, I guess youâd have to agree with him.
But long, long ago, in a land far, far away â a land called âThe Pastâ â you were willing to pay money to go see that film Marilyn was in, and when her dress blew up and she struggled to push it back down between her spread legs with a smile on her face, you were able to smile too and enjoy the moment without feeling disrespectful. If you went to the film with your wife and you glanced over at her, she was probably smiling, too.
And if Marilyn felt it disrespectful to her and other women that her billowing skirt was âsexually charged,â she didnât do a very good job of expressing her outrage.
Because âThe Pastâ is a foreign land where folks do things differently.
Of course, Marilyn isnât the only âPast-ianâ whose sculpture isnât welcome anymore and is frowned upon by âNow-ians.â
Add to that list statues of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Christopher Columbus, Woodrow Wilson, Stephen Douglas, and even John Wayne. All across America, their statues are being torn down. They all seemed like fine people to honor with a statue way back then, but things change.
Because the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.
So catch up, old timers, because youâve immigrated to âThe Now.â We donât do things like that here. If you donât like it, go back to where you came from. Or, since you canât do that, just shut up about it as we tear down those disrespectful statues, and keep quiet until there are none of you left.
Of course, the day will come when every âNow-ianâ will have to face the same reckoning, because the Now wonât always be Now in the future. Someday, todayâs Now will be as old and unwelcome as the Past is today, because thatâs the way it works. And who can say how todayâs Now will be judged by tomorrowâs Now?
How long will it be before Norman Rockwell paintings are torn from museum walls, because they show a very un-Now family smiling around a cooked Thanksgiving turkey, a testament to the primitive days when humans killed birds and ate them?
How long before all equestrian sculptures and artwork are banned because nobody ever asked the horse how he felt about being sat upon?
How long before youâre declared an unfit parent, because you gave your kids Matchbox Cars that encouraged them to grow up and drive carbon-spewing autos that sent global warming out of control?
How long before youâre shamed over walking your dog on a leash, a relic of a primitive time when pets were treated like slaves â collared, restrained and locked in pens â before they were fully emancipated as citizens with equal rights as humans?
When it happens, youâll have to shut up and pretend that you never did any of those horrid things that once felt ânormal.â Youâll be told that, even though everyone else did it, you should have known it was inherently wrong.
Because the Now always slides inexorably into the Past. And the Past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.
Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Canât wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TRâs book, âRevenge of the Sardines,â available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.