Remember when bumper stickers read
Free Tibet or End Apartheid, and we agreed?
Remember when there was just one war on TV,
like a movie whose plot you knew by heart?
Remember when the president was a crook we
all poked fun at, and we mouthed the right words
when tragedy struck, and nothing changed?
Remember when smog was the price of freedom?
Remember 9/11, freedom fries, War for Oil?
Remember paperboys, and newspapers wrapped
in wet plastic, and turning off the evening news?
Remember when planes had a smoking
section? When erudition was good, and debates
mattered, and a gaffe could decide an election?
Remember when we were the good guys?
Remember love letters, and losing touch with
old friends? Remember pay phones, and cell phones
with pull-out antennae, green-screened computers,
the Mine Ban Treaty, Minesweeper, dial-up modems—
when social media toppled dictators? Do you remember
a post-racial America clapping itself on the back?
Those too were terrible times.
