As far as I am concerned
they, these first ten years
of the new millennium,
have had a licence to kill.
As the last day of 2009
comes to an end,
I am hit by a double whammy.
Just a few hours after
learning of the death of
a relative of this person
I dearly love, there it is in
the paper the obituary
that Rolando Monterrosa,
one of my closest friends,
writes on the passing away
of a former coworker of ours,
Guillermo Peñate Zambrano
[his pix at right, click here for the story, or obituary, perhaps I should better say.]
Not getting now into the controversy of when the millennium (and the 21st century) actually began but some may recall that, as the 20th century came to an end, some debated what to name this first decade. "The millennium decade" believe somebody suggested, but I can't actually remember whether a specific moniker caught up.
Me, I thought I'd call them The Bond Years.
As in "Bond —James Bond", the fictional British spy.
And why not?
There was an "agent 008" that could replace 007 (as M was constantly reminding the character originally played by Sean Connery) and as any Ian Fleming's aficionado well knows there were certainly more than ten "double zeros" [were you not to be one, you can find out a lot about the superagents here.]My reason to name these decade as The Bond Years was basically that: the year 001, 002, and so on. Each has a double zero.
But as the end of the decade now approaches, it kind of dawns on me that (on a personal level, that is) there is probably more than just appropriate for me to call them that. My father's death, in 2004, that of my mother's in 2008, and this latest news on the death of my dear friend Peñate Zambrano make me think that they, these years, have behaved a lot like the British spies with the double zeros: with a licence to kill.
they, these first ten years
of the new millennium,
have had a licence to kill.
As the last day of 2009
comes to an end,
I am hit by a double whammy.
Just a few hours after
learning of the death of
a relative of this person
I dearly love, there it is in
the paper the obituary
that Rolando Monterrosa,
one of my closest friends,
writes on the passing away
of a former coworker of ours,
Guillermo Peñate Zambrano
[his pix at right, click here for the story, or obituary, perhaps I should better say.]
Not getting now into the controversy of when the millennium (and the 21st century) actually began but some may recall that, as the 20th century came to an end, some debated what to name this first decade. "The millennium decade" believe somebody suggested, but I can't actually remember whether a specific moniker caught up.
Me, I thought I'd call them The Bond Years.
As in "Bond —James Bond", the fictional British spy.
And why not?
There was an "agent 008" that could replace 007 (as M was constantly reminding the character originally played by Sean Connery) and as any Ian Fleming's aficionado well knows there were certainly more than ten "double zeros" [were you not to be one, you can find out a lot about the superagents here.]My reason to name these decade as The Bond Years was basically that: the year 001, 002, and so on. Each has a double zero.
But as the end of the decade now approaches, it kind of dawns on me that (on a personal level, that is) there is probably more than just appropriate for me to call them that. My father's death, in 2004, that of my mother's in 2008, and this latest news on the death of my dear friend Peñate Zambrano make me think that they, these years, have behaved a lot like the British spies with the double zeros: with a licence to kill.
