EDITOR'S NOTE: This is an opinion-editorial article and the concluding piece to the ASUNews' Earth Week 2010 series that pays tribute to the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
By Jonathan Fink
Last fall I went to the 40th reunion of a high school class in St. Louis that I was a part of through freshman year. I had not seen any of the 75 other attendees in four and a half decades. It felt like a “Twilight Zone” episode, meeting these graying, accomplished retirees, with which my last conversations were about the latest Beatles single or whether their moms could drive them to my house to play. While most of these 59-year-olds were still in good physical and mental shape, the sobering reality was that by our next decadal reunion, many would be in serious decline.