Nostalgia

We have been very close to this topic  on several occasions - maybe I can tie things together with this post. Ramana selected the topic - be sure see what he has to say over at Ramana's Musings.

Definition of nostalgia

1 : the state of being homesick : homesickness

2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition also : something that evokes nostalgia

Nothing invokes a feeling  of nostalgia in me like this

My very first roller coaster ride was the Cyclone at Lakeside Park in Denver, CO. and yes I sat in the first car. I was 8 or 9. That of course led to this-The Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk - in operation since the 1920s.

There was also a ride called the Wild Mouse that scared the heck outta me  but it was replaced in the 1970s. It was single cars - 2 riders per car with the wheels set far back so that you felt like you were sailing off into space on every sharp turn.

Folks who know me or who read my blog know of my music tastes. They are firmly rooted in the sixties and seventies - not because I am firmly rooted in those decades but the music then was the best - Beatles and the rest. Major changes in the direction of pop music that continue to this day. And nostalgia? How about this:

or the real thing:

A lot of people long for the good old days - the fifties. Good? 5-10% of the population was closeted and afraid to admit how they really felt. Women were regularly denied their rightful place in the workforce. They were expected to manage the home and raise the kids while the men did the real work. Rather strange, if you ask me, considering how a nation of Rosie the Riveters handled the workplace while men were off fighting the war.  IMHO the old days were not always so good.

Fortunately, kids in the UK were listening to our music, taking the birth of rock and roll and standing the music on its ear by repackaging it and selling it back to us.

Television and movies were both quite different back in the old days. Both were more character driven but as technology improved over the years both mediums embraced it. Track the differences in Dr. Strangelove, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan and Flags of our fathers to see how movies about war are handled. Television has kept pace with the times as well. and good is good - a good old movie is every much as enjoyable whenever it was made. My all time fave movie is an anti-war film written by Paddy Chayefsky called The Americanization of Emily.

These days films seem to be heavily laden with CGI, often to the point of overkill. I typically find that boring although I freely admit I am a huge fan of the Jurrasic Park, Star Wars and Star Trek series. It is a pity my favorite Science fiction film - The Last Starfighter - was not made 15 or 20 years later to take advantage of the improvements CGI - Starfighter was the first movie to use a Cray computer for all of its CGI.

But, better CGI would not, IMHO have improved the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, and the 2008 remake of  The Day the Earth Stood Still was  IMHO nowhere near as good as the 1951 version. But John Carpenter's The Thing in 1982 was vastly superior in every way to the Howard Hawks The Thing From Another World in 1951.

I distinctly recall watching Leave it to Beaver when I was a kid and thinking that was very similar to my life. I got it and felt like they got me. Today along comes something like HBO's new series Euphoria and it scares me to death if it in any way accurately portrays high school kids today.

I confess to a certain level of nostalgia for my first car - a 1956 MGA.  It looked exactly like this one - dents and all. It cost me the hefty sum of $300.00 when I bought it.

To acquire one today would run between $21,000 and $25,000 dollars. Damn - I should've stuck that puppy in storage and for those smart asses out there wanting to know how I got in it, one leg at a time just like anyone. Ahem.😜

To be homesick you need a home. I have two places that will always be home to me - Pueblo, Colorado and Hayward, California. When I was nine and my sister a newborn, we moved from Pueblo to Hayward. I still remember my childhood buddies in Pueblo - Dave Perkins, Kenny Lockard and Tommy Samberson. Several kids I met on my first day in Hayward remain my closest friends today. The songs  Rocky Mountain High and California Bloodlines immediately take me to my homes and if I am honest cause me to tear up. I miss both terribly, even though they are significantly different then the last time I saw either and perhaps not even recognizable. Nostalgia keeps those two places exactly the way I remember them.

Clearly any positive life experience  is apt to have a trigger that makes us nostalgic and transports us back in time. I think it is perfectly natural to be nostalgic for those good times, but dwelling on them too long and actually living in the past is not the prescription for a happy life. As I have said many times, live for today. Jimmy Buffet said it perfectly - Yesterdays over my shoulder but I can't look back for too long. There's just too much to see waiting in front of me and I know that I just can't go wrong.

That's it for my nostalgic trip through my life. See ya next week, same bat time, same bat channel.