Try to Remember

 

I was listening to 70’s on 7 in my car while I was on the way to play music at Cole Camp. A song came on the radio that I didn’t recognize at first. Gladys Knight sang a song that came up on my display as “Try to Remember.”

      During the intro, she talked about the “Good old days” and my ears perked up. I think we’re all guilty of remembering the past with feelings of nostalgia and longing for the good old days. It seems that time was simpler then than now.

We lived in the country so our summers were spent playing outside. We didn’t have the distraction of video games, computers, or TV with endless channels. Sometimes, outside was cooler than the house. We had no air-conditioning so I read books while lying on the floor in front of the box fan. Summertime was sweating time. The good old days.

When Gladys starts singing, she talks about September memories. September to me was back to school after the long, hot summer. I liked school and enjoyed spending time with my friends. Well, that is except for the year that for some reason the girls I usually spent time with suddenly weren’t talking to me. I never did find out the reason and when I asked someone about it later, she didn’t remember it. The upside was that once I wasn’t a part of the “cool kids” I became better acquainted with the girls that weren’t part of the “in crowd” and didn’t even care.

September also brings back the bittersweet time of when Jim joined the Army. After Vietnam, PTSD, and Agent Orange, we lived in Manhattan Kansas while he finished out his three years of service. I didn’t care much for Army life, but still have sweet memories of us becoming the parents of a baby boy, days spent at Lake Tuttle, going to the nearby park, and how our house was filled with love, laughter, and music.

We couldn’t foresee the future where the time spent in Vietnam would become a darkness that would close in on us. Jim’s mental anguish lasted for years until the brain disease erased some of the painful memories. Unfortunately, it also erased many of the talents and traits that made Jim, Jim.

I’ve lived seven decades and that makes for a lot of old days, good and bad. I believe the best part of the old days was before I was plagued with health problems. I was extraordinarily healthy in my youth with sick days being few and far between.

I think the key to remembering the good old days is to remember the good. One line in the song mentions that as bad as times are now, these will be the good old days for our children.

Life is not all roses, but it’s not all thorns either. Turning thoughts to roses is part of my basic optimism. I prefer to dwell on the pleasant days, time spent with friends, and forget the angst that I felt when things didn’t go according to plan.

The thorns that prick my memories, have long since dulled and turned into lessons learned. The “could have, should have” mind game usually ends badly. I feel that the choices I made, whether right, wrong, or ambivalent, have landed me exactly where I am supposed to be. When it comes to the past, it is what it was, and although the past cannot be rewritten, it can be edited. We can strike through the negative and highlight the positive.

Copyright © July 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

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