Surrounded by Gold
Series of photos around Cambria
Golden Memory
She could not have known the affect she had baked. The first bite was as though being belted into a time machine and delivered to an address in the early 1950's.
Since Christmas a couple of years ago a jar of genuine English mincemeat sat in the back of the pantry. Lana put it to life in pie-cobbler. No top crust, just the savory sweet and unique taste, so authentic it time shifted me. My English grandmother and her sisters made mincemeat pie when they shared a large home, very much like a boarding house, on West Jackson Street in Muncie. Most of them were widows by then and frankly their English culinary skills were not to my liking as a lad with a couple of exceptions, ox tail soup and mincemeat pie.
It had been decades since I tasted real mincemeat pie and each taste fired synapses deep in the memory file, vividly. I could smell the various perfumes of my great aunts, hear the sounds of that big house, feel the buzz as extended family gathered for Thanksgiving or Christmas. What a sweet and naive time it was. And what a wonderful taste!
Generation Shift
My great aunt Martha who eventually survived all the others used to marvel at the progress she had seen and told my brothers and me we would see things she could not even dream of. My mother and father also welcomed the promise of the future and new thinking. Not everyone is wired that way.
While most of the focus has been on the candidates in this cycle there is a glimpse of the future in the supporters and that is probably most true in Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Trump is a sentry of the old and changing structure; Whites, mostly older white men and women, some angry, some frustrated and most frightened by the disruptive nature of the future. More about that in a moment.
Look at the faces and age of the massive crowds that Bernie Sanders has attracted coast to coast. Young, all sex and gender identity, culturally diverse and very much at home with disruption.
Disruptive innovation, big data and the shared economy are forces that are shredding old ways and creating new businesses, opportunities, economic models, ways of living and in essence our future. Trump's supporters have more difficulty getting their heads around such concepts. Sander's supporters are already living lives that make Uber, Airbnb,
metadata analysis, cooperative living, Instagram news and more, a reality.
20 years in the future? Most of Trumps supporters will be dead. Sander's demographic strength will be the most viable political voting block in the US.
Based on the fervent support they have given Sanders, and the ease with which millennials adapt to disruptive influence and data processed lives, the formulating will of the American electorate will be much more inclined to a Sander's vision of government than any of the other candidates in this year. By 2036 a form of social Democracy may well be the model for being elected. I think we are seeing the first signs of that in Sander's appeal to those who will be the bulk of the future.
Boomers are a fault line. Some take comfort in the knowledge of what they know, the richness of their lives and memories. They like things as they are. New operating systems on phones or computers, new designs in cars, new music, fashion and etc are annoyances. Others are still early adopters, fascinated by new art, cinema, technology, eager to use it, unintimidated by diverse mores, excited about the appointments of shared economy, comfortable with change including the relinquishing of power.
At the risk of annoying friends elsewhere-the most exciting region in the US now is the bay area-San Francisco-San Jose-Santa Rosa. Technology, information, data, money, ideas, innovation, space science, energy, automobiles, medical research and application are proportionately more robust and fully engaged in the Bay Area than anywhere else. Disruptive influence, big data, new business models and new politics thrive. That too is a glimpse of the future.
Watch the politics there, a generation shift foretold. I hope as I continue my march to old boy irrelevance I will be excited by new technology, scientific advance and can still find mincemeat pie.
Surrounded by Gold
See you down the trail
