Does the Past Exist When Nobody Is There? -- A thought from me for the day

It may be true that you can never go back to a place because the past is the people and the experiences more than the physical landscape. 

When it all changes, what is left? Only the memories interpreted by our current minds? 

I write to remember those illusive passages of time only to find they may exist only inside me. The one who experienced them. 

Maybe life is not what we live but what we imagine we have lived.

People we knew either don’t exist or exist without any recognition or memory of us. Is that why we can never find them? 

Perhaps you have to write about them to find them. Then maybe they will remember. Kind of like putting out photos on Day of the Dead but they may not be dead, just missing.

I do indeed look for people I think about from the past but as the world has become almost entirely digital, many people seem to have disappeared from view. 

I did find someone who I thought of yesterday. I was encouraged by a line and link from an article I wrote a few years ago titled My Love Affair with Mexico wherein I mentioned a trip my first husband and I took with his brother and sister in law to Mexico. 

Completely out of the blue we hooked up with two young men from the east coast who agreed to travel with us to Mexico City sharing expenses. One of them, Tony Kahn, made a huge impression on me and at the time I wrote the article I looked him up and found him. I had included a link to his website in my article. 

Tony who had been working on his doctoral thesis on Trotsky in Mexico at Harvard when I met him, documented his and his screen writer family’s experiences during the McCarthy era in the United States. His fathers name was Gordon Kahn. He was a very highly regarded and popular screen writer until the House of Un-American Activities got very busy on their mission to “so-called” cleanse the film industry of supposed communist elements. By the way, we are talking such subversive films as Tarzan! 

I revisited the program Blacklisted by Tony Kahn yesterday and was so impressed both by the family’s resilience and Tony’s detailed and personal  telling of the story that I highly recommend your following this link to discover what destruction so many people experienced due to the relentless persecution of innocent people during the anti Communist scare of the 50’s. Many of us read and heard of what was going on as children and were frightened by the propaganda spread on the radio during the period however the detailed personal suffering of the victims was not presented nor understood by us.

https://www.tonykahn.org/blacklisted

Tony addresses the ostracism and fear experienced by his family in school or anywhere in public as well as the economic hardship suffered due to not being allowed to work once targeted by the McCarthy war of terror on members of the film industry and later universities and other influential  organizations. Once a happy, comfortable family of four, they became hated “commies” in the US and unwanted “Gringos” in  their adopted home in Mexico. That is a lot for a family to endure.

The story is eye opening and tragic and yet told without bitterness.

Gordon Kahn was loyal and committed to truth and to revealing the truth throughout his short life. His only goal was to provide for his family and uphold his values even when faced with such adversity. Five foot two and 120 pounds, no bigger than I am, he was a giant in his support of democracy and freedom of thought and expression.

Today I read in the news that the FBI under the Trump regime is making a list of all left “extremists” in the United States. I guess that means anyone who has participated in an anti war protest, rally to raise wages, against unwarranted police brutality, etc.
Well I guess that is me and I am quite proud of it.
Is this here we go again?


Quote of praise of the project:

With an all-star cast including Stockard Channing, Eli Wallach, Ron Leibman, Carroll O‘Connor, Jerry Stiller, and Julie Harris, "Blacklisted" used the power of radio to immerse listeners in the experience of the political and personal dramas of the time.  Featured in articles by Newsweek, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post, “Blacklisted”was also praised by many listeners as one of the most riveting radio dramas they had ever heard.