Just another day in May, and the day my father Norman was born. As it happens, he was given an unusual gift on one of his birthdays, a copy of The Globe, a New York City newspaper printed on the day of his birth.
The Globe billed itself as “The oldest daily newspaper in the United States, Est. 1793,” and this is a copy of its final edition of the day. The front page has no photos and is wall-to-wall news. The main headline is three lines long, an article about Italy, France and Germany signing the peace treaty that ended World War One. In it, the three nations agreed upon how to split up the world they controlled. “I Have Done My Best; It Is Good Peace,” reads the headline of an article quoting French Premier Clemenceau. That “good peace” didn’t last long, as we now know.
“Spring Hot Wave Breaks All Records for May,” reads another headline, and the story goes on to call it “Palm Beach atmosphere.” There is no mention of Mara Lago or global warming, but reports that it was so cold in Cleveland and Chicago that baseball games were postponed.
Other articles include a warning by New York’s District Attorney about fraudulent oil stock sales, a probe into explosives used in “attempted May Day outrages,” and a fire at Happyland Amusement Park that destroyed 35 bungalows. Strangely, an article mentions that Lewis L. Nixon is the new Public Services Director. Nixon…hmm. There is no mention of the birth of my father, and there was none in The Globe when he died ninety one years later. For that matter, The Globe had long died by then as well.
What is evident is that what I call “the human mess” is an old story, one capable of easily filling a daily newspaper. That story still fills the news today, although the era of three edition daily papers has been succeeded by a 24-hour newsfeed, constant postings on the internet, in social media, blogs, podcasts, and postings on Instagram, Facebook and X. And the issues are largely the same: peace, war, financial shenanigans, weather, sports and a mishmash of trivia and gossip. The dates change, but the topics remain the same.
“London Bridge Is Falling Down,” goes the childhood jingle; today we could sing “Oil Prices Hit New High,” “Iran Says It Won the War,” or “Civil Rights Go Down the Tubes.” It’s always something. “Make a Mess and Clean It Up,” is the jingle of humanity. This is why I’m not always upset. I know the tune all too well.
“Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” a bumbling Oliver Hardy would say to the equally bumbling Stan Laurel in a stunningly wise summary of our human condition. We’re muddlers who can’t leave well enough alone, yet as messy as we are, it is also the source of our creativity and inventiveness. These qualities elevated humanity above all other animal species during the past million years or so; the Voyager 2 space probe is now fifteen and half billion miles from earth and still talking. Now that’s some world-class muddling.
By all means pay attention to what’s going on, but don’t despair. Yes, we are the globe’s first-class screwups, but we muddle through.
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