I’ve been time-traveling this week.
One of my friends from elementary school invited me into an FB group for people who grew up in Germantown, Tennessee. I was there from third grade until my third junior year at college, so I technically qualify (some would say I’m still growing up).
I was in the class of ’82 (as in raisin’ hell like Devils do, we’re the class of…), so it was just about 30 years ago that I started my senior year. Most of the people at my church were either still in diapers or were no more than a gleam in their fathers’ eyes at that point. Guess I’m older and wiser. Or at least older.
It’s interesting to see who is still living in Memphis, who still looks remotely like they did back then, and how many of my classmates are now grandparents (zoiks).
But the past can be a dangerous place to visit. Life really was simpler then: I didn’t have a mortgage, I wasn’t responsible for anyone but myself (and I wasn’t even good at that duty), and my parents still took care of most of my expenses. The stakes have gotten higher since then. It is really tempting to want to somehow grab a piece of that point in time and make it happen again (maybe the term mid-life crisis applies here).
We look at the past through fun-house mirrors, the kind that bend reality and make some things seem smaller and some larger than they really were. As someone has said, “The older I get, the better I once was.“
There is also sadness in the past. Craig Kidwell, Dan Dunning, Reed Lowell, and Franchot Hightower…all died too young – the first three before the decade of the 80′s was over. I imagine there are more names that belong on that list; I just haven’t kept touch to know about them.
I can’t say that I loved or hated those years. It’s a mixed bag. I wouldn’t be who I am now if those years had been different; but who’s to say that’s better or worse?
