Seven Wonders

This morning while I was flipping channels looking for some news (really looking for some white noise to be the background for my eggs and bacon), I learned that Good Morning America is in the middle of a New Seven Wonders of the World segment. They intend to name seven new wonders. A camera crew went out on the street in New York and asked passers by if they could name the current Seven Wonders. Not a single person could name all seven, and I found that I couldn't name them either.

The Grand Canyon was on my list, as I had always thought it was a list of seven Natural wonders. The New Yorkers named manmade places--the Great Wall of China, Mount Rushmore, Big Ben. As I listened to the places they suggested, I wondered if there were different lists--one for manmade, one for natural, one for old, one for new. The idea seemed disturbing to me, having all these years thought there was a set and standard Seven Wonders that could not be changed.

Take away Pluto, but don't touch the list of Seven.

It turns out there are many lists, and these lists have been modified and tweaked and toyed with for ages. The first list was compiled in the 2nd century B.C. by a Greek poet and later updated in the Middle Ages, even though some of the places on the list didn't exist anymore. And these Seven--the Wonders of the Ancient World--weren't natural, but man made--monuments, statues, gardens. They were tourist spots for the ancient Greeks, which accounts for the fact that the only things on the list were places the Greeks had traveled and graffitied, evidently.

At first, on hearing that GMC was making a new list, I thought they were fiddling with something sacred, but I now know that these lists are meant to be morphed and adapted as time goes by. So, while they are compiling their new global list, I'll be formulating my own local list--thinking small and naming spots in my world of middle Ohio that I think are somewhat wondrous.

Think small today, and make your own list of what amazes you where you live.