A Forgotten World
Today marks my 26th birthday, and I started thinking about the future. One harsh reality came back, something is very wrong. You can take that for whatever you think. I'm going to tell you a story.
In 1854 there was cholera outbreak that killed six percent of the population in Chicago. The city went to work on fixing the problem, and two years later Ellis S. Chesbrough created plans to install a sewerage system for the entire city. There was one problem Chicago was not much higher than the shores of Lake Michigan. To put in the sewer, workers would take the buildings and pushed them on hydraulic jacks.
I want you to think about that for a moment. You’re walking to work on your usual route. You pass a block you passed a hundred times before and turned the corner. You stop, you look up and see the foundation of the block that held your job. You get close and see the printing press you work for. The door swings open and your boss is standing in the doorway just looking down at you. He gives you a hand up, and you go to work like nothing was going on underneath.
Could you imagine that? Now can you imagine that the buildings survived such a thing, and business stayed open? That was what happened in Chicago, now why tell you that story?
As I said at the top of this story, something very wrong. We in the country love to blame someone for this problem, but in our rush to do so we forgot the problem is still there. We are so busy punishing people we ignore the problem even still exists.
A statement that could be made is the men were different in 1850. This is true, no one from 1850 that saw these sewer systems being put in are alive today. The world has changed, the problems are more complex. Yes, they are, some of them lay a world away.
All those statements were true. The world has changed and will continue to change. The people were different, they didn’t focus on what could happen a hundred years from what they did. They did what they had to. Yes, the Raising of Chicago is one of the greatest engineering feats in the history of the US, but that doesn’t change any of the facts. They saw a problem, they wanted that problem solved, and they solved it. It might not have been pretty, but it worked.
I'll end this by saying this. We all have to deal with headaches and heartache, but that doesn’t mean that can stop us. I was never supposed to become a writer, or even go to college, but I did both. Every day on this Earth is an opportunity, to do something for your life. Do something to effect the lives of others. My parting words are this, if you see something wrong with the world, do something.
