My Dads Birthday

My Dads birthday today made me consider something. My kids called their Koro and told him all about their day and how much they were looking forward to seeing him next week. He's old of course (but fit) but when I told the kids how old it seemed to fly over their heads which made me think...What had he lived through?

Well lets see...

• He was born and lived through the worst of the Great Depression. Living in rural New Zealand cannot have been easy.
• The rise of the fascists and the appeasement process that blighted the late 1930's.
  
• His brothers left to fight in the Second World War and suffered through their capture in Crete and their incarceration for the duration of the war.
• The end of the various Fascist regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan.
• After WWII the Cold War began, with all the attendant paranoia that came with it.
• The betrayal of both the Palestinians and Jews in Israel and the on-going violence in the Middle East.
  
• He joined the Maori diaspora from the rural East Coast to seek work in and around the Country.
• The Korean War.
  
• Eventually he joined the Navy and travelled around the world.
• He met my Mum and she came to New Zealand to marry and raise a family.
• They settled on the North Shore, close to the Naval Base in Devonport.
  
• He was sent to Malaysia to fight in the 'Emergency'.
• He was supposed to observe the Nuclear testing at Christmas Island but was left behind to play for Navy in an important rugby game... many of those sailors and their children now suffer various forms of radiation poisoning.
• We sent 'White' teams to play the Springboks in the 1950's, '60's and '70's
  
• Britain joining the EEC and the effect on our economy.
  
• The Vietnam War.
• The 'Muldoon' era including the infamous 'dawn raids'
  
• Three major wars in the between Israel and various Arab nations. (1948-67-73)
  
• Rogernomics and the economic Boom of the 1980's.
• The subsequent crash of 1987 that ended a lot of peoples fortunes.
• The release of Nelson Mandela and the fall of Apartheid in the 1990's.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall and with it Communism.
• Desert Storm
• 9/11 and the War on Terrorism.
  

I may add more later, but its a lot isn't it? Consider this one of those odd digressions I wander off on in class! It would be nice to know that some of you considered asking your own Koro/Kuia about their lives.