Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. Doug Larson
Dear Fellow Travelers:
I hope you brought along a sense of adventure and expectation as you read today’s post. Our assignment for today is to find a quote and use it as inspiration. I liken that assignment to something that most of us have done; hiding Easter eggs. I guess most of you have hidden Easter eggs haven’t you? Somewhere tucked away in my home is a box of photographs from childhood days; back in the middle of the last century (makes that sound ancient, doesn’t it?) There in one of the photographs, dressed in Easter Sunday finery for all the world to see is me sprawled out on the grass beside a huge Easter basket playing with colored eggs.
If I didn’t remember anything about that day, the picture would literally be worth the proverbial thousand words; I seem to be carefree, happy, unaware that America was embroiled in a Cold War and that a “police action” was going on in a place called South Korea. I did not realize that I was part of the postwar baby boom, or that the world was complex, filled with disappointments, heartaches, suffering, or pain. This was my age of innocence, although my vision was perfect I was colorblind. I had no sense of real danger, and the world in which I lived was relatively free of crime and violence. Policeman were respected and trusted; bankers and school teachers were regarded as pillars of society and were looked up to, especially by the families on my side of town where most of the textile employees lived.
Three-score years later, not only are the textile plants gone, but most of the ability to live a carefree life have vanished as well. The landscape where the photo was taken still remains basically unchanged; but few other items even resemble images from a young boy’s childhood in the 1950’s.
In looking at the photo, I can recall the purity of the moment; but what is missing is a balance of emotions and situations which were not captured by the lens; the story that lies beyond the thousand words or so of nostalgic memory. Not pictured is the fact that I hated the spectacle and fuss of dressing up in such manner for Easter Sunday; missing also is my fear of many things including an ever-present dread when the fire sirens sounded in our small-town community. Those sirens were especially terrifying during the dark hours of the night when the imagination of a child conjured up all sorts of horrible images.
Perhaps the thoughts that were so filled with terror back then still exist in our lives today with one subtle difference; as we grow older we develop ways of hiding our fears, sometimes through elaborate masks or other manners of concealment.
If I looked closer at the childhood photo, perhaps I would observe the fact that there was a good reason for my being so haphazardly sprawled on the grass that day long ago; I had just fallen, spilled the eggs from my basket and was busily picking them up, carefully examining each one of those beautifully dyed eggs for damage. The eye of the camera stated carefree and playing – but my young world had suffered a major catastrophe – I had some broken eggs.
Warmest Wishes – Mike
