Age caught up with me again last week. A friend was telling me about a documentary series about the Blitz he'd just watched. To think it happened just 19 years before we were born, he said, which is as recent as 2007 is from today.

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That got me thinking about where we all sit on the timeline of human history.

Of the 25-year-olds not yet born when the planes struck the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon on September 11.

Of the rapidly dwindling numbers not just of World War II veterans but also those who fought in Korea and Vietnam.

Of the old family friend Evelyn, long gone, who would share memories with wide-eyed young me about seeing zeppelins over London in World War I.

Of my mother, also long gone, who told me of the fear mixed with childish excitement when the Japanese midget submarines attacked Sydney in 1942. She was nine years old; the memory resurfaced during her final days in hospital.

My friend's observation about the shortness of the interval between the Blitz and our births had me thinking about my own position on the historical timeline.

Too young to remember the assassination of JFK, old enough to remember the Apollo program and the moon landing. Old enough to know the Vietnam War overshadowed the lives of adults, young enough not to fear conscription. Too young to vote for Gough. Old enough to be electrified by his changes but too young to see how it would end in disaster.

My place on the timeline has been fascinating. The Cold War reached its zenith in the 1980s, nuclear annihilation overshadowing everything. It came to an end when the Soviet Union collapsed 35 years ago and the Berlin Wall fell. But history didn't end there. It evolved into something young me would never have imagined.

When I first visited China in the 1980s, on one of the first cut-price package deals offered to Aussie tourists, the place was all Mao suits and bicycles. Now it's the world's second largest economy, a high-tech powerhouse and Australia's chief trading partner.

The Australian passport I had as a kid had the words "Not valid for North Vietnam" imprinted on it. Now Vietnam - reunified half a century ago - is one of Australia's most popular holiday destinations. The hammer and sickle flutters over a country........

© Canberra Times