One of the columnists in the Topeka Capital-Journal reminisced today about things of his earlier years. He’s about my age, and I can relate to his wandering back into his early-day recollections of how things were.
I, too, find myself thinking about the things of my childhood and early adulthood. I even find myself talking to others at times about what it was like in the 50’s, or where I was when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, or what I was doing when JFK was shot. I tell of times when a trip to Wichita from our hometown was more than just a 45 minute routine. It was a once-in-a-year experience not to be forgotten. And I talk of relatives long departed and how I remembered them.
They tell me that this urge to recall the past only grows stronger with age. They say that I will continue to regress, so to speak, and that there may come a time when I just go back and live in the past, at least in what is left of my demented mind.
While I enjoy the memories of the past, I have no desire to go back to that time. I enjoy the Internet, cell phones, digital cable, and modern medicine too much to wish for that time. I like the idea of automobiles routinely lasting well over 200,000 miles, and the Interstate highway system. I’m in no hurry to regress to my childhood, sheltered and innocent though it may be.
So give me a break when I reminisce and understand that, although it’s something I enjoy doing, in no way am I suggesting that it was somehow better then. Smile and nod occasionally as I ramble, and remember that you will one day do to some unsuspecting soul as I am doing to you.
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