FRONT PORCH THOUGHTS

      

      I’m sitting on the porch on a lovely Sunday afternoon, thinking about what I have not yet made of these summer months that are quickly passing. Oh, I know—there is still the whole month of August. And yet, I have been around enough decades to be aware of how fast time goes when you’re not looking.

        I remember that as a kid in grade school, summer seemed like a long time. That’s probably because summers were always filled with a lot of things going on—long nights of playing hide-and-seek, swimming at the “Minnie Hole” as we called it, going to an amusement park (Clementon Lake Park, for those of you who may remember it) the boardwalk in Seaside, the beach on LBI, and a dozen or more other things.

       Now that I’m retired, I suppose I could retrace some of those steps, but it’s hard to get a group of adults together to play hide-and-seek. They are too “dignified” and “mature” even though down deep inside they would really love to do that. And I don’t know if anybody still swims at the Minnie Hole and most of the arcade games I use to play don’t exist anymore (replaced by high-tech electronics that confound me) and Sandy destroyed a lot of the things on the Seaside boardwalk or they have been updated to keep up with the times.

       Of course, it wouldn’t be the same anyway, and that’s as it should be. As Bob Dylan has sung “the times, they are achangin’.”

       This leads me to say that changes have always been a reality in the history of humankind whether anybody wants them or not. And let’s face it: some of them are pretty darned good! I don’t want to have to go down to the river and wash clothes and beat them against a rock or try to read by dim candlelight or have to go into town riding in a horse and wagon or go the well to draw water for drinking and bathing every day.

       But what is it in the human psyche that longs for days gone by? Our days gone by, that is. It might be the fact that certain memories are a gift. They represent the authenticity of joy. They validate the appreciation of the people we have had in our lives. They remind us of the fact that life hasn’t all been about politics or bills to pay or running a household. It has also been about times of carefree pleasures of the moment. And the truth is, whether we're aware of it or not, we are making new memories that are just as much a  treasure in these days we are living right now.

Just a thought. 

(I will not be posting for 3 weeks due to the fact that we will be in Europe until the middle of August)

TIMELINE MEMOIR

Thinking It Over

 A couple of Saturdays ago, I spent some time chatting with Paul Prestopino at Howell Living History Farm near us. He and his band—the Jugtown Mountain Country String Band—play there fairly regularly when there are special events.

            His name may not sound familiar to you unless you went to Hightstown High School several decades ago. But since high school he’s had quite an illustrious musical career. He played with John Denver with the Chad Mitchell trio, later known as the Mitchell Trio. He helped John launch his solo career. Then, for years he had been an accompanist for Peter, Paul, and Mary, and still does occasional gigs with Peter and Paul. There are many other musical credits to his name, too numerous to mention. Not surprising though—he’s a great musician—guitar, mandolin, and banjo just to name a few.

            Paul has a lot of interesting tales to tell about a world that has long been of great interest to me as well as a kind of mystery. How does a person move from the realm of an ordinary appreciator of music into the realm of well-known, even famous, provider of the same?  I’m not wanting to know that because I think I have a chance of starting some great musical career now that I’ve retired from the ministry. At 75, it’s hardly realistic to even imagine such a thing, not to mention the very modest talent I have of playing the guitar and singing.

            What I’m interested in is the story. The story is the thing. Not just Paul’s story, but all of ours. We each have a story to tell about the unfolding of our lives that is not only interesting, but informative, reminding us of who we are and where we’ve been as well as how it’s been. It’s sometimes the case that we don’t feel like we live very interesting lives, but that’s because our world favors the more spectacular and grandiose.

            I took a writing workshop up in the Berkshires several years ago in which most of the people there were wanting to write a memoir—a very popular trend these days. We each shared some of our life story with each other and found it to be a great exercise in life-appreciation, giving us a better, more accurate sense of the value of our own lives as well as the value of telling “the story” with others.   It’s not that anyone was going to make a biographical movie of us, but that we got a clearer understanding of the “meaning of life,” if you will.

            At any rate, I was thinking of an exercise that would perhaps be meaningful to anyone who might wish to do it: that of writing an overview of his or her life, using each decade as a “chapter.” It wouldn’t have to be long. It could be just a brief listing of the major and minor events and experiences in each decade.  

            The form doesn’t matter. It’s more meaningful if you design your own.

Just a thought.