Dear Grandkids,
It was 42 years ago that I graduated high school. Forty. Two. Years. That sounds like a long time ago but really it seems like yesterday.
The year was 1976 – it was the bicentennial year of our nation’s birth. Our graduation was moved indoors because of the threat of rain. It was a sad day and a happy day.
I had a great high school experience. I made good grades. I played several sports. I had good friends. And it was in a town that I loved growing up in. But the world was a very different place back then. There were no cell phones. The internet did not exist. There was no such thing as social media. The Vietnam War had recently ended. We were in the middle of the Cold War with The Soviet Union. And I still had a head full of hair. Gas cost 59c per gallon (about $3.00 nowadays). A nice new little house would cost you $45,000 (about $200,000 nowadays). And the average cost of a movie was about $2.14 (about $9.00 nowadays).
Apple Computer was founded in 1976. That would have been a good stock investment. It was the first year that the Naval Academy accepted female students – and one of them came from our graduating class. A man named Bruce Jenner won a gold medal in the Decathlon at the summer Olympics that year. Get your folks to tell you about what became of him. And a movie called “Rocky” was released that year and introduced the world to Sylvester Stallone.
So what’s my point in telling you all this? There is no way to predict what the world will look like in another 42 years. But I promise that it will be different. Enjoy the journey. Embrace the changes. Build significant relationships. And cling fiercely to God who never changes. He will be the Rock that you can always count on and the Refuge that you can always run to no matter what happens in this crazy mixed up world.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17)
Never ever forget that you are very very loved!
Pop Pop
