Nostalgia

Make it like it was
The way it used to be


The above is a line from "Make it like it was" by Regina Belle and it could be the guiding ethic of many of us "older folks." Especially those of us who had our childhoods in the 50's to early 60's. I like the song but I know we cannot turn back the clock. And I wouldn't want to. There were things that were bad in those days, things I wouldn't want to see being the "norm" again. Institutionalized racism (Jim Crow laws), for instance, or the practice of "red-lining."

It was strange, we had less freedom then but we didn't notice. In some ways, we had more freedom but that was because there were a lot of people who we might call "busybodies", people who paid attention to the things we did and would tell our parents. Yet, we seemingly roamed very freely. It was contradictory times, I suppose.

It helped that I lived in a small town far from the big city (maybe 50 miles, maybe, but it might as well have been a 1000); we got a lot of TV and radio stations because of that big city. A fact that was driven home to me when we moved to Florida where we were closer to the big city but had fewer stations (3 TV stations instead of 5-7). Still, we didn't miss much and didn't care. I didn't spend a lot of time in front of the TV set. I was busy much of the time exploring the area around my new home.

I guess I miss my youth, something that I can never have back.