We make history, too

As I've said before, logically I know that things we do today will be history to someone in the future. One day, someone might research that thing they used back in the 1990s and early 2000s called "The Internet." Even looking back *now* on shows like Saved by the Bell from the early 1990s or Third Watch from the early 2000s and seeing the MASSIVE BOX Zack Morris or Doc Parker held to their ears and called "a phone" is hysterical. But sometimes it's nice to get a little reminder that our parents or our grandparents were A Part of History that we can see now.

Last summer, my family and I went to the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Obviously, this museum has a lot of history -- old fighter planes, jet packs, an Air Force One, etc. -- but it was the more recent history that made me take notice. (And okay, Air Force One was pretty cool. It was actually the reason I went.)

The Airpark, the lot across the street from the main museum, has an Air Force One, a Concorde, and the first Boeing 747 built. I'd heard stories before from my mom about her dad working at Boeing, on the assembly line when the first 747 was built, and something about him crawling into the wing as part of his job, but when we actually saw a 747 (the first 747), and most likely one of the actual planes he worked on, and saw the little window in the wing (which I didn't even know they had), it kind of hit home. I mean, there are small windows (Okay, I don't know how small they are in real life/real proportions, but compared to the rest of the plane, they're tiny.) in the wing and my grandfather might have actually been in that very window. Wow. History, and my family. My little, nondescript family, and we might have been part of something on display in a major museum! See? History doesn't have to be hundreds of years old to be considered "history." And your very own family can be a part of history, too! (Because, I mean, really, if my family can be part of history, anyone's family can be!)

The wing of a 747, complete with windows.
Franklin H.R. might have looked out that very window.

(I also think it's kind of nifty that my family still lives in the area of the Everett Boeing plant. My grandfather worked on the Boeing planes in Everett 40+ ago, and now, Boeing still test runs planes over our house. It's *sort of* like we've kept it in the family: from my grandfather working on 747s to me watching 787s. He worked on the first 747s, and I've seen so many 787s fly over the neighborhood, years before they were ever being sold, almost as if I were part of the test run myself.)