Next: Back Bay Pathfinder Up: Contents Previous: Contents Contents
1997: Kasparov is defeated by Deep Blue. The NASA Pathfinder space probe lands on Mars. The Pegasus rocket takes off with the remains of Timothy Leary and Gene Roddenberry in the first space burial. Bill Clinton bars federal funding for research on human cloning. The Heaven's Gate cult dons their Nikes. In Boston, Menino is elected mayor in the first unopposed race in the city's history.
Personally, I didn't grow up in Boston. I grew up in Providence. Boston was distant, beyond my carless reach, a site of possibility, a city that seemed bigger than anywhere I had been before (true) or anywhere I would ever be (false). When I read in newspapers and magazines about how technology was going to change the world, Boston was central. Boston was where things happened. I moved to Boston, and people tried to convince me that San Francisco was really where things happened, but I knew better: It was right here.
Looking at the submissions we received, it's clear I wasn't the only one thinking that. In 1997, our authors were teenagers or in their twenties, using the place as a way to look forward (see George Helene Lox's memoir) or as a place to launch a dream (quite literally, in Beth Baniszewski's opening pantoum). Others looked forward to the city, seeing their future beneath it (Cassandra Phillips-Sears's poem). One of our contributors, Michael T. Fournier, was even reading and editing independent literary magazines at the time. We were all making the future.
This unrestrained enthusiasm, while valuable, needs to be tempered. None of us are where we thought we would be eleven years ago, nor is the world around us. Postrodent's photo-essay ``The Fitchburg Line Industrial Corridor,'' excerpted in this magazine, shows us where we have come from and where we might be going. You can read its entirety at our website at http://placetime.org/issue1/somind/, formatted with care for the web browser of 1997. Alex Gang's work on 1897 provides a similar tempering: while many things have changed, a few of those editorial points could still be applied today. Personally, I was especially amused to see the criticism of female bicyclists; I'm pretty sure I've seen similar sentiments in the Globe's letters in the past year...
