Ah! The Good Old Days!

A friend of mine sent me an email a few days ago and suggested it would make a good blog post. I think she’s right, but maybe a little differently than she expected.

The email (and we’ve all seen it, or something similar) talked about ‘remember when’ things. Some of them I am nostalgic for and some of them, not so much.

Is it really the individual things we are nostalgic for? Or is it the era? Or maybe it’s the age we are nostalgic for; and age when we had freedom to do what we wanted, within parental limits, and seldom thought about doing things outside them?

Seriously; is anybody nostalgic for a 19 inch black and white TV with 3 channels? Okay, maybe ABC, NBC and CBS are. But I doubt their nostalgia includes black and white.) Maybe I am nostalgic for the shows; Gilligan’s Island is funnier in a single show than Family Guy is in a season.

Is anybody really nostalgic for when the majority of cars didn’t have air conditioning? I mean hellfire; I love old cars, but I ain’t gonna spend 2 hours stuck in a traffic jam in a ’57 Chevy without air! But if I’m on the open road, give an old Chevy Bel-Air over a new Malibu any day.

How about the medical care we had 40 years ago? Sure the doctor made house calls- because everything useful in his office he could carry in a small black bag. Your average doctor’s office is better equipped (diagnostically) today than a major hospital was 40 years ago. I don’t even miss the house calls. I usually got a shot, even if I wasn’t the patient!

What am I nostalgic for?

Summer nights, when I could hear a thunderstorm in the distance at 2 am, and not worry about whether or not I put down the patio umbrella or wound up the car windows.

Summer days, when I could play army in the woods, camp out in the tree house and ride my bike anywhere I wanted to go, as long as I didn’t cross the street. Instead of spending the summer days I have free from paid work doing unpaid work; mowing grass, trimming bushes, weeding flowers and maintaining the homestead.

Winter days, when 6 inches of snow didn’t mean a long commute, but no commute-SNOW DAY! When I could sled ride on the hill behind the house, build a snowman and have a good snowball fight or two, instead of fighting the snow the #%@^ county didn’t plow, shoveling my drive and walk, because SOMEBODY has too, and hoping I didn’t slide down the hill behind the house… without the sled.

I miss the fall days too, when the air just started to turn crisp and lose the humid heat that made August unbearable. When a sweatshirt felt good while I was rolling in the leaves somebody had raked and put out at the curb (and would rake again when I was done -and not yell at me- Thanks Dad!). I miss the early first frost that always made me think of Christmas, and how close its getting, now that fall was almost here.

Now… now I am the one raking leaves, and the chill reminds me that soon I will be paying a heating bill. The early frost is just a delay in the morning when I didn’t plan on scraping my windshield. And a reminder than Christmas is coming. A holiday I don’t enjoy as much as I used to 40 years ago.

What really worries me is that today- with all of the problems we have- will one day be ‘The Good Old Days’ to somebody. Eh; maybe. But I doubt I’ll ever meet anybody nostalgic for a Prius.