BOOM OR BOOMER?
THE SPORT OF DOGS CANNOT GO BACK TO THE FUTURE
H ere’s a question for the Baby Boomer generation: If you had a time machine, would you go back and relive your high school years? The answer given in response to this enigmatic ques- tion is most often, “No, but…” (Ah, there’s always a proviso when it comes to mat- ters of the hypothetical.) Most people indicate that, if given the chance, they’d only go back to high school if they could bring with them all the experience and wisdom they’d accumlated in life since graduation. Of course, even without the constraints of time, life doesn’t work this way. In fact, it’s the lessons learned from mistakes made that make life worth living. Solving problems allows us to move confidently towards the future. And although it may be helpful throughout this journey called “life” to look back on occasion, it is not actually possible to “live” in the past. Try as we might, those of us who are Baby Boomers cannot relive our glory days. Though we may not want to admit it, the future—including the future of the dog sport—belongs to today’s high school students. BOOM! In the 1985 blockbuster film, Back to the Future , director Robert Zemeckis allows viewers to travel back in time with Marty McFly, a skateboarding teen played by Michael J. Fox. The film’s protagonist is a “red-blooded American teen- ager” who accidently finds himself at this high school—30 years earlier—where he meets his future parents, inadvertly prevents their meeting, reconciles the couple’s relationship and, ultimately, travels in a time-traveling Delorean back to the future. The Academy Award-nominated picture gave movie-goers a chance to escape back to a simpler time, when suburban life was predictably safe—and preternaturally boring. So powerful was the pull in the 1980s to return to the post-war boom years of the 1950s that worldwide audiences spent more than $380 million in theater tickets. For $3.55, the decadence and disasters of the present could be forgotten—if only temporarily—by returning to a place framed in white picket fences and peopled with nice girls wearing Poodle skirts. Now, more than 35 years since Back to the Future was originally released, many Americans are finding themselves, yet again, looking back to simpler times—the 1980s! Who knew that we would one day be nostalgic for punk rock and spandex? Well, maybe Ray-Bans? The lesson to be learned here is a simple one: The past only “seems” kinder, sweeter, simpler… better than the present— and the future. In reality, all we really have is now. Despite the trials that we are all living through at the moment, the truth is that 35 years from now these will be the “good ol’ days” for a generation of Americans. Following are a few thoughts that may encourage Baby Boomer breeders, exhibitors, and judges to enjoy the present as we daydream about being behind the wheel of a time-traveling Tesla.
BY DAN SAYERS
66 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, SPRING EDITION
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