Reflecting on the Past

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of being involved in many organizations and activities on the island since moving here full-time in 1990. Purchasing here on Marco in 1986 was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my lifetime, and I truly enjoy calling Marco my home.

One of those organizations I’m proud to belong to is the Marco Men’s Club and as I’ve enjoyed playing golf with a group of those members every Wednesday morning before I started having some back issues. During the course of that play we converse about a lot of items, along with recollections from our past lives. We are sometimes surprised to find we have had similar experiences and enjoyed some of the same escapades in our lifetimes.

One of those weeks’ conversations touched on the occasion to hear someone speak about the “good old days,” and what that really meant.

Myself, I had a relatively modest upbringing. My dad was a self-employed barber, and my mother was a “stay-at-home” mom. That didn’t mean she didn’t work, because she did, and her challenges expanded expeditiously after the death of my dad from cancer at the young age of 45. This would leave her with three children, ranging from nine to 16 years old. She would raise us on her own, with me being the eldest of the three.

I do think the term, “the good old days” is a relative expression, which for me, relates more to the tenure of life which surrounded us growing up. The level of respect we had for one another and social norms, before we had to deal with the issues “entitlement” became an issue within society

We did have many challenges during our times, as we dealt with issues such as an unpopular conflict in Southeast Asia that saw over 58,000 brave men and women give their lives for a questionable policy, and the inability of government to deal openly and honestly with the public.

We also had to confront the simmering racial divide within our nation and recognize the need for change. If a man could lay beside another and bleed on the battlefield to uphold democracy, he also should be accorded the same rights as other citizens when he returns home. In America, we should never accept the idea of a second class of citizen but instead celebrate the equality of all of our citizens and recognize the diversity of the fabric which makes up our nation’s landscape.

I do reflect back on a time when our lives were a bit simpler, and I do long for those days. A time when we were not attached through electronic leashes. When families might sit down to a meal and not have a smartphone as the centerpiece on the table instead of a conversation concerning our day, regardless of how trying it was to educate our parents, but realizing later in life just how wise they truly were.

How we would head home after playing outside in the neighborhood when the streetlights came on, and not having to receive a text on that phone kids consider so vital to their lives today.

To a time when public safety professionals, teachers, nurses and others were truly respected and not questioned and disrespected. 

Yes, I do miss 25 cents a gallon gas, going to the movies for a quarter, and the 15-cent hamburger at Howdy Beef Burger in town. I don’t miss having my knuckles cracked with a ruler when I got caught talking instead of studying in class. No, there are a lot of things we all miss from the past which became a big part of our formative years.

The one thing I do miss however is having conversations with both my parents, or having my dad sit next to me in a golf cart and give me a little advice on how to putt a little better or having him with me at the Red Sox Spring Training game last Spring up at the Jet Blue Park as to have had the opportunity to have brought my younger brother Bill with us on one of those trips. 

I do miss hearing from my younger brother Bill, who passed from pancreatic cancer three years ago during the pandemic. My sister and I did get to be by his side before he passed in the home we all grew up in on our quiet street in New Hampshire and laid him to rest across the street from that same house we all grew up in.

What I wouldn’t give to see my parents both sitting down next to my sister, brother and I as we shared one more meal together in our kitchen, while our parents spoke about those “good old days,” as they remembered them growing up, and hear them laugh at their recollections. As I grow older, I hold onto those stories as I long for those simpler times where we are thankful for the simpler pleasures of life with those we should have spent more time with and long to hear their voices.