By Georgie Bright Kunkel

When trapped in a chair with right leg elevated it takes ingenuity to use the computer but here goes. As I keep telling everyone that considers me a temporary invalid, “I am still fine from the ankles up.” I have had more time to ponder the history of personkind (note I have made this word more gender neutral than mankind). Even my computer manager put a red line under the word personkind. I must complain to the one who set up this spellcheck.

Now I am letting my mind wander into the great beyond with wonder about it all. I am fantasizing about living in the Stone Age when humans had just begun to walk upright. That was a mistake right there, walking upright. I can blame my weak back on that decision to walk on two legs rather than on all fours. And I realize that if I could go back to this era that I would be completely out of sync, as it were. Imagine, no formal language, only grunts and moans. I could identify with the moans which are like my moans when I don’t elevate my leg often enough and get swelling inside my cast.

So let’s go by time machine back to the origin of humans. Living in caves with snakes and spiders venturing inside would not encourage me to stay. I could only use hand gestures to communicate. There might be drawings on the cave walls of the first human killing an animal for meat. Yes, humans went from foraging and moving to better food sources to fencing in their land and animals in the first attempts at land ownership and agriculture.

And learning to procreate must have been an interesting learning process. No formal engagement period or church blessing or state license. Wonder how the cave people figured out the sex act in the first place? According to anthropologists early people did not even associate this act with procreation so they didn’t worry about contraceptives. Instead of deadly weaponry there was muscle power aided by a knobby wooden club. Just think, no TV, no internet, no credit card, no bank machine, no I-pod, no Karaoke machine, no hospital, no country club, no skyscrapers, no corporation, no air travel.

Since travel was limited there was no need to learn other languages. What a shock for natives here in this country to be invaded by strange people in sailing ships. That was the beginning of what we know today—the whole world in our faces on TV and internet. It was the beginning of learning about people with other ways of speaking and worshipping and making a living.

The husky male Eskimos in the early days shared the fish they caught with everyone in the village. Of course the head Eskimo hunter got the choice fishhead cheeks which were a delicacy. Too bad that we didn’t maintain the early Eskimo’s method of feeding all the people in the tribe. We haven’t figured out how to adequately serve those who are now living in poverty. The movers and shakers prefer to cater to male sports and profit making than to serving the needs of the greater community. It might be interesting to go back to those early days. Since I am a worrier I might not attempt that since I wouldn’t trust that I could return to my time period. Even with the stresses of modern living I wouldn’t last long in a cave.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net ot 206-935-8663.