Happy New Year! Still. I almost wrote, ‘We’re already a week into 2025!’ But I stopped myself. We’re only a week into 2025. I love words and the difference between those two–already and only–evoke two very different emotions for me. Already has this sense of urgency, of time passing almost without our noticing. How many of us have said, ‘It’s already what o’clock?!’  when we’re busy and enjoying something? Only can feel like time is dragging, or it can be a reminder we still have time. ‘It’s only what o’clock!’

I thought about that as the calendar page turned last week. Has it really already/only been 25 years since our focus was on the Y2K bug and the fears of the demise of the world as we knew it? I remember the concern–panic for some–of banks shutting down, grocery stores being empty, highways being gridlocked, international flights falling from the skies, our energy grids going totally kaput. All because of a potential computer glitch. The ones not panicking were the ones taking care of the problem before most of us realized there was a Y2K bug living among us.

Heather Cox Richardson’s January 1, 2025 article lays out why none of those horrific things happened. Apparently, decades before, scientists did notice there’d be a problem and began working on the solution–which actually turned out to be a simple one. By the time our calendar page turned from 1999 to 2000, there was much ado about nothing because the bug had been squished months before.

What struck me while reading Richardson’s article is how often I question things, not realizing or trusting that someone smarter than me might already be taking care of the situation. How quick people are to gripe about the way things are or aren’t getting done, when they don’t have all the information. Or how often we simply forget there are others behind-the-scenes. Over the holidays in a conversation, I commented on the miracle of preemies who survive. My son, whose partner is a neonatal physician in a cluster of NICUs, came back with, ‘There’s a lot of hard work behind those miracles.’ Ouch. He’s right. Having experienced a medical miracle with my daughter, I know. In this new year, I’ll work to keep my ego and tongue in better check. Anyone with me?

Back in 1999, every day in the months before the century changed, the Charlotte Observer printed ‘Scenes of the Century’, single images with just a few sentences about it. The earliest one I clipped is from 1905, showing President Theodore Roosevelt and a group of other men wolf hunting in Vernon, TX. Many were iconic images like Marilyn Monroe in her air blown skirt, a young Elvis in 1956 in full hip swivel, and Martin Luther King Jr. giving his I Have a Dream speech. Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldren standing on the moon. I particularly like the image of Mother Teresa at 85 years-old beaming at an infant held close to her face, and one of Nehru and Gandhi huddled together, laughing.

An assortment of them recalls moments in history that have perhaps faded, but still touch us: President Franklin D. Roosevelt opening the Great Smokey National Park in 1940; Nelson Mandela’s election in 1994; the Great Smog of 1938 in Pittsburgh, (the 1948 Donora Smog in PA would launch the clean air movement); the return of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997; the bombing of the Bath Consolidated School in Bath, MI in 1927 killing 45. The description below this image reads, “The attack made the news recently when several news organizations mistakenly reported that the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO was the worst-ever school attack.”

There are those bearing witness to national struggles or disasters: Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after her arrest; the 1906 San Fransico earthquake; the Hindenburg crashing. The Challenger explosion. There are pictures of breadlines and the Dust Bowl years, photos from the Vietnam War, and one from 1916 when Poncho Villas raided Columbus, NM. The notice under this photo (written in 1999) reads it was the last time the continental United States was attacked by a foreign power. Ironically, only 2 years later we’d have some of the most iconic images of our century with the attack on the Twin Towers.

One photo in particular accompanied an article that could’ve been taken from today’s headlines–a cut into the Panama Canal a year before its completion. In 1999 Tom Teepen, a columnist for Cox News Service, wrote about President Jimmy Carter turning over ownership of the Canal to the Panamanians. Teepen was putting to rest back then some of the same concerns people are raising in articles I read last week.

I don’t imagine I’ll be around for the turn of the next century but I hope my Grands will be. We’re already/only 25 years in, what images have become ‘Scenes of Our Century’ that they’ll look back on? 9/11. The rescue of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River.  People with special glasses for two solar eclipses. So many images from the January 6^th insurrection. Somber respect at the funerals of Queen Elizabeth II, and President Jimmy Carter. All the images associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. The destruction of recent hurricanes–and the people behind-the-scenes who are working–still–to restore power, roads, homes. What do you think of?

Wishing each of you a very happy 2025! May it be filled with your own iconic moments and images to carry you through. Have a good week–I’ll be back on Monday.