I had begun clipping favorite lines to post from Cohen’s article yesterday in the Times about the “Good Old Days,” until I decided, in the end, that the tenor of the piece was not one I could endorse and so then I dropped the project. But today, driving in to work, my mind started spinning. Gosh, there were some innocent moments way back when! I have no desire to go back to those days for all the political and social reasons that are so obvious as not to require enumeration, but gosh! Do you remember when one could actually say gosh repeatedly and not seem weird (or “strange” because as Cohen says, one didn’t used to say “weird”)?
Much of what is now only nostalgia can be said to have been lost because we’ve wizened up a bit. And so I notice that any list of revered past icons and habits and expressions, contains a salute to ignorance. And how much of what we do now will one day be lost because we will understand that it is causing everyone, ourselves included, great harm?
Everyone should occasionally sit back and recall a thing or two that was wonderfully sweet and benign – for a period in time. I remember when I could pick up a doughnut and a cup of coffee on the way to class and use the term “clogged artery” only to describe traffic congestion… I say this as I eat some disgustingly healthy whole grain-bar, rushing to write this so that I could meet someone for a ‘healthy’ spin around the neighborhood. Yes, sweet innocent treats of the past – joining the Union of Socialist Youth in Poland during the 60s to save our future, thinking that “going all the way” meant holding hands with a boy, kicking a soccer ball around with kids of many ages and stages amidst cow dung on the meadow where cows grazed and later gave us milk for the supper table, with plenty of buttered bread to go around. Sweet days indeed.
6 hours ago
