George Singleton's 'Somewhere in Time' from Jan. 4, 1990

George 'Buster' Singleton

(For decades, paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was entitled “Man has conquered almost everything but his own self,” was originally published in the Jan. 4, 1990 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala. This column and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive. Enjoy.)

Today is Sunday, Dec. 31, 1989. The time is 8:23 p.m. Within a few short hours, the old year will give way to the new.

There will be horns blowing and all kinds of loud noises to celebrate the birth of a new year. Last year will have faded into oblivion. Like burying an outlaw, only the scars and the memories will remain.

But what is on the horizon for the new year? What have we, the human beings of the world, decided will be the way of life for the coming year? In looking back, a great many changes have taken place in our world during the past year that many thought would take a lifetime to happen. But they came overnight; some took longer, a few short months.

Many of the world’s people are feeling the freshness of freedom for the first time in their lives. If these people had been told that they would be free just 90 days ago, they would have laughed and wondered who was crazy enough to dare speak such foolishness. Truly great changes have taken place in the year 1989.

But with all the great news from around the globe, are we overlooking the one thing that stands in the way of making the 1990s a period of greatness unequaled in the world’s history? Can man today handle the situation?

Another Hitler or Stalin

Let us take for example the reuniting of East and West Germany. Who is to say that in a few short years, another Adolph Hitler won’t come out of the shadows? Who is to say that even if Russia makes the full 180-degree turn, another Stalin isn’t waiting? As we know from past experiences, an tends to become weak and careless when he gets too successful.

Don’t misunderstand – I would like for the world reform to continue. However the time is at hand for ‘the sentries to stay awake, and stand guard against the thief in the night.’

Many things face us as a nation on this eve of a new year. The great problem of pollution is like a slow, creeping disease that brings death and destruction throughout our beautiful land. The time is at hand when this issue must be faced. We do not have many years to wait and think about this dreadful menace.

We Americans, and other people of this world, have got to take a long look at the so-called ‘good life’ and decide just what we must have and what must be terminated in order for us to survive. There are so many things that are not needed, that we depend on every day.

These fairy-world goodies not only pollute our world, but the human race would live better without them. I don’t profess to know all the answers, but I have been around long enough to know that man can’t survive living in a fantasy world.

Many of us today don’t know what is real and what is make-believe. Should this country ever have another depression, I’m not sure many of our citizens could separate the facts from the fantasy.

I am not a great television watcher, but just earlier tonight, I was watching a narration on the decline of the Roman Empire. The people of Rome faced many of the same fantasy-world problems. Their society, too, was plagued with a dreadful disease with the similar symptoms of our modern-day AIDS. Their’s they called leprosy.

During the last days of the great Empire, they disregarded their country’s defense. They turned to the worship of idols. They turned to a world of fantasy living, just as we are doing. They put the discipline of family duties in the background. Broken homes became commonplace. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like one of our modern-day television programs. Strange, isn’t it?

The Roman population turned to the worship of the sports arena. They began to pick many members of their senate from the arenas, not because they were qualified, just because they were popular.

Sports over food 

When Caesar was asked by the commander of his navy whether to bring corn back from another country to help feed the hungry, the captain was scolded and told to bring sand for the floors of the arenas. Caesar was quoted as saying, “When the masses are watching the contests in the arena, they forget their hunger. Bring the sand.”

We Americans enjoy the greatest life on this earth. We must prepare to discipline ourselves for the events to come if we are to stay that way.

We must also be prepared to sacrifice anything that threatens our health and our environment for the sake of our children and their children’s children. We must free our beloved land of the threat of drugs. We must discipline ourselves for the hard times ahead, the hard times that are awaiting us on the edge of the horizon.

We Americans are yet to be tried. But with the strength that I know dwells among us, we can survive. We have in the past; we shall in the future.

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville.)