Everything must go

Rightly or wrongly, I’ve come to think of everything that’s occurred since 9/11 as part of “the recent past.” Those events that predate the coming of the twenty-first century, on the other hand, all seem to me to have taken place “a long time ago.” What inspired this train of thought, strangely enough, was the announcement the other day of the bankruptcy of Sears, Roebuck.