Life goes on

Memories fade. Legends pass. Life goes on. 

Major Francis Dade was a respected military man in a time when that really meant something. Just days after Christmas 1835 he was charged with leading 110 officers and soldiers from Fort Brooke in Tampa, Florida, to reinforce the outpost at Fort King in Ocala, Florida. A cannon that fired a six-pound ball was their largest and ironically least effective weapon.  

The column never arrived at its destination.  

Approximately 25 miles short of Fort King, a group of roughly 180 Seminoles led by Micanopy and Halpatter Tustenuggee (a.k.a. Alligator) hid. They were none too pleased with the military intrusion into their lands. Their ambush was well planned and executed, leaving the entire Army contingent dead, save for three men. Only one of whom, badly wounded as he was, would get back to Fort Brooke to tell what happened.  

The story swept the nation. Referenced as the Dade Massacre, this was the incident that caused President Andrew Jackson to increase the military presence in Florida a full decade before it became a state. The 2^nd Seminole War was the result. A bloody and horrible thing it was.  

It’s likely you’ve never heard of Dade’s Massacre. If not, it isn’t because you’re not a true Floridian or a history buff. More likely it’s because this is not a happy story. It doesn’t have a satisfying outcome. The story, like the men it referenced, died.  

On the other hand, you probably do know a fair amount about another military conflict that happened outside the official boundaries of the United States during that same time period. It was only three months later that Mexican soldiers under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna faced off against and killed the defenders of the Alamo in modern day San Antonio, Texas. Books and movies have been made about that battle.  

As a story, the Alamo is much better. It involves the president of Mexico leading troops into battle against American citizens who have left to become Texians, including a former U.S. Congressman in the form of David Crockett. The battle was a blistering loss for the defenders, but that loss led to a series of events that allowed Sam Houston to eventually defeat the Mexican forces at San Jacinto. Santa Anna was taken into custody. Texas became an independent country. In 1845 Florida and Texas both became part of the United States.  

A good story lasts. A less than uplifting tale tends to wither over time.  

Consider this somewhat more modern example. In 1928 an entrepreneurial young man named Juan Trippe based his fledgling airline offices at 301 Whitehead Street in Key West, Florida. Today it’s a restaurant and bar. A nice one, too.  

Juan called the enterprise Pan American Airways. This aerial experiment first took flight using a single engine Fairchild on straight floats headed from the shores of Key West to Havana Cuba. A trip of just 90 miles started it all.  

By securing the postal route he was able to cover expenses. By carrying passengers on ever larger, more capable, and comfortable airplanes Pan Am grew. Then grew more. The company expanded routes beyond the imagination. By the 1930s Pan Am had grown to include the historic Sikorsky flying boats as the heart of its fleet.  

International in nature, Pan Am flights spanned the globe. Glitz and glamour were part of the Pan Am story from the early days. Charles Lindbergh pioneered routes for the airline and sat on its board of directors. The Beatles came to play on the Ed Sullivan Show via a Pan Am flight from London.  

Pan Am was the biggest, most prestigious airline in the world. Stanley Kubrick even used Pan Am as the space transport system that kicked off the out-of-this-world vision of his classic film “2001.” Not as a joke, either. In 1968, the same year the movie premiered, Pan Am actually began issuing membership cards to travelers hoping to leave Earth aboard a Pan Am spacecraft as part of their “First Moon Flights” Club. 

Yet today, 32 years after the demise of the world’s most expansive airline, many travelers have no idea that Pan Am ever existed. To those of a certain age the idea that such a massive success story could be forgotten is inconceivable. But it has been to a large degree.  

Life goes on.  

In life, in politics, in technology, and transportation we will see a continual stream of innovation, expansion, success, and failure. If we look to the world around us we can see innumerable stories of heroism, just as we can see a seemingly never-ending string of horrific occurrences.

We can argue our perspective about whether green energy exists or electric cars really have less of a carbon footprint than their gasoline powered cousins. We can pick sides and battle each other over politics, or economics, or the restrictive nature of Home Owners Associations (HOAs). Little of it will matter in the long run.

The story with the best outcome, the most salacious thread to it, the largest body count, or the most unimaginable outcome will tend to become the story we remember. That’s often true even if it isn’t the most important story to be told.  

Regardless of that, we can live the lives we wish to live. We don’t have to battle our way down a sandy path as the locals shoot at us. We don’t have to fend off an invading army. We can start a new business venture that has no guarantees, but remarkable potential — if we play our cards right.  

Will anyone beyond our families notice our successes? Maybe not. Will they make movies about our failures? Unlikely.

But each one of us has the opportunity to set out on our own adventure. Whether we win or lose in the long run is anyone’s guess. Whether anyone remembers us or what we accomplish is beside the point. Try. Push on to the next big thing. Your next big thing. Even if nobody else cares.   

The world is built on a series of random occurrences that all come together without a master plan. But on an individual level, we can plot our own course and live our own dream.  

Good luck to you and yours as we launch off into yet another new year — our 2,023^rd since we started counting.