Brave New World

In this picture Timm blows out birthday candles along with Mom and the woman at the right, who lived in the duplex behind my mother (I think Timm and the woman shared a birthday) I took this picture in 1980, a month into my relocation from Spokane, Washington to Orlando. It would have been Timm's 17th birthday. I would have been 23.




The duplex was on Glenridge Way in Winter Park -- guess what the address was? There's Timm on the right, with sister Molly and I to the left.

I was a pretty lousy brother to Timm back then, obsessed with rock n roll and partying, much in the throes of a much-prolonged adolescence (it lasted at least til I was 30, though sometimes still at the gym I'm still at it.) I think of few things we did together -- saw "American Graffiti " at the Fashion Square Cinema (a twinplex long torn down). We may have gone to the beach once or twice. His world was his own, and it was different from mine back then.

That summer Timm headed on Teen Missions to Alaska -- the first of his far travels -- whetting a taste for adventure which led him to work with the Parks Service in Wyoming in his 1981, when in October he had his near-fatal accident.

Florida meant different things to us. For me, was a place that left a special imprint on me when I was very young; for Timm, it was where he grew up. For me, it was a place to return to; for Timm, it was a place to spring off from.

In his later years Timm spoke of wanting to move closer to Mom and Dad, somewhere between Florida and Pennsylvania. He seemed more comfortable with Florida, though from the following, it's clear that he had adopted and adapted well his florid, beautiful, rolling Oregon.

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BRAVE NEW WORLD

Timm O'Cobhthaigh (2003)

When I was growing up one of the greatest joys of my young life was exploring the lakes, swamps and woods that surrounded my Central Florida home. During a Christmas break from college I made the long trip home and decided to revisit a few of my old haunts, only to find that they were gone. In there place were the Urban Sprawl that has become a ever present fact of life in the 21st century. The disappointment and loss that I felt is not a new phenomenon to me and my generation. I am sure that my father, and his father, and his father's father also knew the pangs.

I remember a neighbor, Mr. Chubb, used to tell me how he used to race horses in a grassy field near our house that now is covered with a thoroughfare.

We as a people, nation and species have enjoyed for millennia the vastness of a planet that could absorb whatever we could through at it. It's riches seemed endless, the mountains and plains stretched on forever. But it is clear that this cannot go on forever -- our planet does know its limits and has been trying to let us know that we are reaching them.

One of the hallmarks of our species is the ability to adapt to the elements and challenges life throws at us. Our ancestors spread out to the furthest corners of the globe and now inhabit all but a few of the most barren. Technology has assisted us in these adventures allowing us to move in air, space and water in relative safety. But our species also has another trait that we share with many other creatures -- we don't do change well.

Reports come to us daily via the evening news, publications and other sources of declines in salmon numbers, increase in carbon dioxide, decrease of polar ice caps, dwindling flocks of songbirds and the list goes on.

Measures have been taken in several arenas to stem the declines and negative changes, but they are still to little to hold off the outcome that looms before us.

Will it happen in our lifetime? Probably not. But our children and their children will know changes unlike any our species have encountered.