'Man of the Past; Living in the Present; Walking into the Future,

'Mystic Ma' - the song styling of the late reggae artist Peter Tosh.

When I reached what is called the Big Four-O I did a reflection on the years I had so far lived through.

On September 20 - tomorrow - I will reach another milestone in that I will be 60 years old. Not quite officially a senior, as I am told that this Government will not be giving me anything in the way of benefits, but nevertheless, I am at a position in life where I find myself looking back down the pathway to a time when society looked upon seniors as worthy of some form of deference. Man, where did all that time go?

I was born in 1948, the tail end of the so-called baby boom, where that cluster of demographic expanse first made its impact known and has influenced the direction of society every since, at least in that part of the world we know as the West.

Peter Tosh's Mystic Man, from my point of view certainly fits my life experience that so far I have lived through, for surely the world I was born in is in the past.

Just imagine living an existence where there was no television and the radio station played religious programming throughout Sunday. There was no such thing as FM radio, no cell phones or cable TV and your electric power depended on putting your hands on a shilling to feed the meter when the power went out. What is a shilling for those of you who are too young to know? That was the time before our currency was based on the dollar value and we were linked to the British pound sterling - before waking up one morning to find that we were no longer in the sterling era.

Outside toilets and baths in a big round metal tub might seem to be images from a bygone age but dipping water from the tank was a regular chore for the young boys in the house when I was one of those boys. It helped develop your muscles and responsibility.

There was no such thing as Daylight Saving Time. In fact time and the seasons used to pass very slowly. We knew when the summer arrived because we could hear the singers with their insect songs coming from the cedar trees, but when the cedars died, so did the summer melodies. The tree frog and its night song remains but for how long in today's world, we have to ask.

I remember my school days well and find it incredible when I hear that some of our young people are reaching high school yet unable to read. Those were the basics that my Bermudian teachers taught their young charges.

You knew your ABCs, how to spell your name, how to count and your times tables. I was shocked to find out that my young daughter could not count in her head, divide, subtract and add when I used to help her with her homework.

Did the calculator and computer do this to our children? When did they take learning the times table out of the learning process? Was it because it was considered that learning by rote was outdated for the modern world? That it was better to use a calculator rather than learning to do it in your head? One of my fondest memories is of the process of learning my times tables because one of my classmates used to beat on his desk to give the class, who had to recite those numbers to the teacher, a sort of rhythmic timing as we recited our times tables. I wonder why the teacher did not stop him. Perhaps she understood that this in a way was assisting us to learn. Drumming it into our heads perhaps.

Out to work, I used to park my car on the city streets without fear of getting a ticket. In fact I used to park all day across from my restaurant job and the so-called rush hour traffic which lasted until six o'clock, At that time the city was as quiet as a grave yard with only the odd car or bike passing by.

At the age of 18 came racial and political awareness along with civil unrest and protest and Bermuda would never be the same again. Some of us embraced the change while others feared it. I came to understand much about the realities of my country and the world, taught by some of the social giants who helped bring it about.

In my mind's eye I saw the world change Martin Luther King was assassinated along with the struggle of racial conflict and civil rights in America.

The end of the Vietnam War and the withdrawal of the Americans from South East Asia, the resignation of US President Richard Nixon as a consequence of the Watergate scandal, the end of Portuguese colonial rule in Africa and the liberation of southern Africa, many wars in the Middle East, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the beginning of the computer age and the increased use of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Yes, how things have changed in the past 60 years.

The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) strikes every country in the world with the threat of further disease pandemic of even a greater magnitude just around the corner and heightened concerns that man's activity on earth is contributing to global warming.

This and other world challenges are occurring at an ever quickening pace and we are a long way from the benign existence that would appear to the reality that I was born into on that September day in 1948.

Do I have a longing for the days of my youth when life seemed to be less complicated? Perhaps in some respects, but if I were to hang on to those circumstances than I would not be able to step into the future that those people and events have shaped over the last 100 years, 60 of which I have had the privilege of having lived through.