1982 - No Coincidences

    First of all, today will be productive. It is Saturday, and I was able to ball up with some brothers. No one got hurt, lots of good running and sweating. Then I went to a church congregation family house move. I got cooled down a bit to do a little more labor. A younger father and mother got a new town home with 800 more square feet space for their growing family. They will be closer to their respective jobs, and be in our same church ward, as we call it. This in a part of town around the corner from a church that I had seen a couple years ago, which turns out to be a place that I wanted to go to, based on some personal goals from the summer of 2020.

    Why? It is a Black church, and I made a commitment to go to at least five since 2020. I can discuss those reasons at another time, if I have not already.

    But that is not the coincidence. No, there is something more time related than place related that came together, that is the convergence of coincidence to me this morning. The second Saturday morning of July, summer 2022. The coincidence is related to the year that occurred 40 years ago.

    The year 1982.

    One brother at the move destination, who I will call Jay, said he had been living in his house since 1982. In this town, this far outside the bigger city, four decades is a long time for one person to be in the same location and residence. My neighborhood where I currently live was built at the end of the 1990s. We still have some new developments being built this far into the 21st century. We have been in our home since 2017. Five years, like one of our church leaders who was also part of the move, call him Adam, the same year as our move, the summer half a decade ago.

    1982: I have some memories. The Soviets were trying to replace their Supreme leader, not too successfully; there was the economic recovery from the recession and the last time that we were going through such a time of inflation. I was mowing some lawns in the summers, maybe occasionally substituting for some paper routes, finishing up my Cub Scouting career transitioning into Boy Scouts. 

    In athletics it was the year after Isaih and I.U. won the basketball championship for my hometown team. The one and only Michael Jordan, as a freshman, won the final game with his baseline jump shot. In 1982. He would become the best of all time, in many peoples' opinions. I think my family visited Greensboro that year, with former neighbors of ours who moved to North Carolina. They took the roundball luck with them. Poor Sleepy Floyd, who made the very errant pass to James Worthy. To set up the game winning shot. Georgetown was so close, a few times. But other teams would ruin their parade. Like Villanova, with some players high on cocaine. But I digress...

    Meanwhile, Jay was moving into his home, where I have spent some time in the last years that I have known him. We moved into our current town in 2009, but it was not until around 2018 that we shared the same church congregation with Jay. Or was it 2017? Time passes, boundaries and people move and change.

    After completing the move, the off load of the big box truck, I got into my car that I had moved from that African-American Baptist church to be closer to the family's new home. I was looking for a Band-Aid, originally, because Jay had gotten cut. We had removed all the belongings off the truck.

    Time to go home and write on a blog. I like to do this on Saturdays. I like to write. I am almost done with a book that I started last fall, 2021. I can and will work on this.

    I like to listen to NPR on the radio station WAMU, especially while driving, but when they go to all their sponsors and advertisers, wasting my time as a listener, besides when they ask for donations multiple timers per year, I switch to another public radio channel. On that station, the DJ mentioned how he had been working on the radio for forty years, as a young teenager. The year? 1982.

    He played rain related music. Raining in Georgia. Raining all over the world.

    Have you heard it? I cannot recall the author. I need to look it up.

    The DJ said his grandmother would play it. Thanks, grandma. Thank you, public radio. 

    Thank you, 1982. And thanks to the coincidences. 

The world is big, yet small. Time is long, but connected. And, time passes too fast, we can all agree. Time is an enigma, is it not?

    What do you remember or know from 1982?