|
|
|
|
|
Mel and I were in an antiques store a few weeks ago and spotted a big world atlas book from our era.
"We should buy this," I said. "It's got a lot of neat maps and the price is right."
My husband slowly thumbed through it.
"Why this thang's obsolete. The world's undergone a lotta changes over the past hunnerd years. Gubments have tumbled, nations has fell, boundaries have been redrawed an' names has changed. Lookey here, it's still got Iran listed as Persia, an' here's Czechoslovakia all in one piece. Yugoslavia was a lot bigger back then, an' Germany was still split in two..Sri Lanka was Ceylon, Thailand was Siam...Ah reckon after that bad tsunami, the landscape has changed eben more. They said on the news that some 'em islands sunk. Pore people's got lots of troubles..."
I agreed and examined the map on the page he had open.
"Burma's still Burma on this map, although it changed its name to Myanmar in 1989," I noted. "I don't think the rest of the world has recognized the name change. Even most of the new maps still say Burma."
I flipped the pages and paused on one that showed a map of Africa.
"This map still has Tanganyika and Zanzibar delineated. They united to form Tanzania in 1964," I said.
"How do you remember all 'em dates?"
"Geography was one of my favorite subjects," I replied.
"Mine, too," Mel said. "Ah wuz a reg'lar whiz in georgaphy an' hist'ry."
He turned to a page that showed the former Soviet Union.
"Now this un's shore nuff undergone some changes since we wuz kids. In mah humble opinion, Gorbachev jist cut the bob wahr fence an' let 'em all out once't his pastures wuz grazed off to a nub...Remember that bald-headed meanie, Nikita Khrushchev? He'd been skeery shore nuff if he'd had Leonid Brezhnev's wiry eyebrows."
"He was plenty scary, if you ask me. Remember his shoe-banging stunt at the UN when he yelled to the U.S. representatives, `We will bury you'? I had nightmares about that."
"Yep, we jist knew the Russians wuz comin'. In fact, we wuz so convinced of it, me an' Tommy (Mel's brother) built us a gem dandy hideout whur they'd a never found us.
"We grabbed us a couple o' li'l ol' army shovels an' went down on the creek behind our house. We found us a spot whur the water had already warshed out a holler below a big ol' tree. Me an' him dug back up under it. We had us a spot big nuff to whur we could sit up, lay down, an' store a jug o' water an' some Vi-een-ah sausage, potted meat, an' sardines."
"You mean a fallout shelter?"
"Nope, a cave. We wuz expectin' Russian soldiers to come after us any minute. We eben fixed us a water fall in front o' the entrance so we wuz hid good. It's a wonder a cow didn't come trompin' along an' the whole shootin' match didn't fall in on us."
"Well, you just confirmed my suspicions."
"Whut suspicions?
"I've always had a hunch I was married to a caveman."
