An old email

Around midnight on 27 July 2004, I sent out a brief email to all in my address book. I’ve never forgotten its message.

Last night I spent two hours using the fantastic search engine google has provided for locating personal computer files. Finally, after scanning a dozen or so CDs holding my computer documents of nine years, I located the old email and wrote a post around it.

Then, I got an error message: “run-time error,” which zapped the post.

I must preface what follows by explaining that I am totally dependent on Microsoft Word. I can see nothing in my AOL inbox and cannot read emails or even determine who they are from until I copy and paste them into Microsoft Word where the messages open up to me in 18-point bold font, white on a black background. The screen before me is now the only thing on God’s green earth I can see. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy this medium so much.

I opened up a new Microsoft Word file to begin again only to be met with a message box I couldn’t read, headed “File Recovery Something Or Other.” I am the Pearl Pureheart of freaking computer situations. Every time I opened a new Word file, there was that damn box, rendering Word unsusable. Finally, after another two hours of clicking on this or that, the annoying messge box disappeared into the computer’s nether niches.

The occasion of the old email was moments after Barack Obama’s keynote address – “The Audacity of Hope” – at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, once an incubator for an infant nation.

The subject line of the email is: “PREDICTION.”

I wrote:

“Barack Obama. Keep an eye on this guy. His political star will rise. BJ”

I confess I find the meteoric speed unsettling, but the prediction came true, made official last night.

Like all journalists, I thrill at observing history in the making.

Such moments in time are often fraught with tragedy. Many bring injustice. Others are filled with prmise.

A miracle is needed to deliver as much as has been promised.

Time will tell.

***

THE 2004 KEYNOTE ADDRESS