Forty Years Later - Is this what the Sixties felt like for those (i.e. all Americans) caught up in the black civil rights movement? This sense that progress is messy, and that society sometimes lurches forward in a sudden and unsettling way, leaving many if not most people unprepared for the "next stage" of civilization?

I suppose there were many blacks, back in 1964, who felt like I do: happy and excited about progressive laws and court rulings that were opening up the apartheid of American life yet at the same time anxious about backlash and lingering animosity. Like the closet, second-class citizenship has its comforts. Everyone knows their place, and if you play by the rules, not only can you get by but you may even prosper. Equality sounds nice on paper, and well-meaning people probably agree that it's the right long-term goal, but the road getting there is rocky and maybe dangerous.

So, fair Beaverhausen readers: Here we all are, squarely in the middle of another social upheaval. Interesting times, indeed.