Living in the Past - Reminiscing

For a little mood music, I have chosen this classic:

Lyrics:

Happy, and I'm smiling, walk a mile to drink your water.
You know I'd love to love you, and above you there's no other
We'll go walking out while others shout of war's disaster.
Oh, be forgiving, let's go living in the past.

Once I'd used to join in every boy and girl was my friend.
Now there's revolution but they don't know what they're fighting.
Let us close our eyes. Outside their lives go on much faster
Oh, be forgiving, we'll keep living in the past.

Oh, be forgiving, let's go living in the past.
Oh, no, no, be forgiving, let's go living in the past.

This is a nostalgia piece.

Lately I find myself in a mood to flirt with the ladies.
I would be getting ready to type out something like "You know I am a great ..."

And then it would hit me, "No wait! That was thirty years ago." Usually I would have the sense to just delete what I was writing. Occasionally though, I don't have that sense.

So what I wonder is: Am I the same person that I was 30 years ago, or is that just a young memory in an old man's head ?
==============================
I was thinking of a joke once, when the Pope removed the requirement of tonsure:

So the monk yells "Woohoo! I can grow my hair out again!"
Then he pauses, thinks, "I guess I can't after all."

a reply to: pthena

I miss people. I’ve calculated during this year in Cali that I miss interactions that exceed “those of a gas station”.

What do I mean? Well. Getting coffee to go at the local haunt. Just basic everyday stuff. Gone.

If I’m getting really greedy; Cotton candy at fairs. Mini-golf. Concerts out in the sun with a cold beer....

Way back in the seventies.

A mate and I were cycling down a very steep and 5 mile long hill.

He had front and back caliper brakes. I had a rear disk brake fitted.

I also had a speedo. It broke that day after going right around.

His brake pads just melted in junks. He melted the back ones first and then the front ones. Did I mention the steep hill.

There was a lucky break in the traffic ahead and since we were going faster that the 55mph we were forced to weave in and out of traffic to avoid rear ending a car.

The reason for the break in traffic was a patrol car doing the speed limit.

As we passed the patrol car they sped up and pantomimed slowing down. I pantomimed no breaks. The Sergeant said, "#". They roared ahead to clear the intersection.

What a wild ride that was.

So finally we stopped and of course the patrol car arrived almost immediately. The junior officer wanted to book us for speeding . I pointed out that my mate could hardly get a ticket since he was on a runaway bike.

He asked why I didn't slow down and my reply was to stare him out while saying "Because one does not abandon a mate in trouble." The Sergeant nodded sagely and that was the end of the ticket nonsense.

While we sat and waited for our trembling knees to subside, the two Police changed our brake pads taking the empty cardboard boxes with the.

Within a week all of that brand of pads had been removed from every shop. The Police decided it was an urgent issue and visited every bike shop in the city.

I wonder what would happen today?

P

a reply to: pthena
My facebook has a group call if you grew up (name hometown) then you remember... loads of reminiscing of hometown places and events from the past. Like do you remember your high school honk or did you ever bumper skate in the winter time on frozen streets? Lots of reminiscing from the 50's-thru the present.

a reply to: pthena

I love his acoustic stuff

a reply to: ICycle2

I Like lots of Jethro Tull.

I was thinking of using Too Old to Rock and Roll
for the music.

I like Anderson's flute performances.

a reply to: pheonix358

I wonder what would happen today?

A pair of tickets and the brake pads still on the shelves.

I remember the first ticket I ever got. That's not counting the tickets I got before having a driver's license.

It was a simple thing really; just turned left where I shouldn't have. The cop explained that he probably wouldn't give me a ticket except for the fact that he had been scared #less.

So I'm driving in the right hand lane all proper like, wondering "Why are all these on coming drivers flashing their high beams at me. I've got my low beams on."

Then I just happened to glance over to my right and saw the traffic over there going in my direction. "Oh crap! I'm supposed to be over there!" So I was already in the dirt island heading for those other lanes by the time the cop car caught up to me.

The ticket said something like "driving on the wrong side of a divided highway", but I swear it was just a wrongful left turn.

a reply to: slatesteam

I sometimes get a little too chatty with the lady who stocks the produce section of the grocery store. The grocery store is my social outlet these days. I'm sure it isn't fair to the people just trying to do their jobs.

a reply to: pthena

The first "rock" concert I ever went to was Jethro Tull at the Forum. Ian Anderson was AMAZING! He danced, leaped, played the flute and sang like a superhero! It was awesome! One the best memories of my rock and roll youth!

a reply to: Sookiechacha

My older brother was a Tull fan before I was. He read reviews of the performances in a magazine.

He was rather agitated about a review once. "All this guy could focus on was the dirt on Ian's shirt sleeve! What's wrong with these critics ? Don't they realize it was a music event, and not a freaking detergent commercial ?"

That's a paraphrase, not an exact quote, I may have embellished a bit with the detergent commercial part.

You know all those times after a conversation is over, and you're walking away, and then "Oh damn, I should of said this, it would have been so perfect."

a reply to: pthena

Oh man, the stories I have to tell no-one would believe..

I was a latch-key kid after school from the fourth grade till the end of high school as both my parents worked.

I also had my own exit from my bedroom through a finished side attic and down the stairs to the back door of the house.

When I was in my teens I had some wild friends.. I remember being fourteen when my friend Blair (yes with a name like that he was definitely rich) first stole his grandmother's car to go joy-riding with..

He would sneak out of his house around 1 or 2 am and put her care in neutral and coast it down there drive way..

So he picks me up almost every night for several weeks and we would cruise for a few hours then get the car back before sunrise..

He would drive like a madman, catching air off of the dips in the back roads and it always felt like he was just about to lose control and wreck us,but he never did..

Again, we were 14 years old at the time,zipping down twisty back roads at 60-70 miles an hour. No exaggeration...

One Friday night he called me around 7 pm telling me he was gonna pick me up around 2 am. I had to decline I had an indoor soccer tournament that Saturday morning.

He decided to go out by himself I guess because the next day when I got home from the tourny (2nd place). I got a call from my other buddy Darren telling me Blair was in the hospital..

Apparently with out me screaming to slow down he was going to kill us, he just went ape-snit by himself.

He ended up with two broken legs when he slammed head on into the old oak tree near the long meadow pond doing 80mph.

I have always counted my blessings having had that tournament the next day..



Respectfully,
~ meathead

I also love me some Tull !!
My favorite songs by them are:
Songs from the wood
And
The Whistler

a reply to: JON666

So I got this 20 year class re-union invitation a long time ago.

Oh yeah, good for B______, ( class alumni President ) she seems to have adapted well to the gentrification of our once small town, based upon her address.

There were a couple of friends that I had run with that I went to visit a couple of years earlier. They were pretty much pushed out into the sticks. You know those places that have wildfires ? Yeah, those sticks.

------------------------------
I've got some memories from the 50s.

When I was about 15 my oldest sister was driving around doing miscellaneous errands with me riding shotgun. She pulled into this small parking lot in front of the Chiropractors Office behind the red brick hotel.

I pointed at the Chiropractor's Office and asked "Remember when you took accordion lessons there ?"

She pulled back away so as to get a full look at me, and had an amazed expression, "You were 3 when I quit those lessons! How do you remember that ?"

Based upon her reaction, I thought it best not to mention the first time I'd looked at those red bricks on the hotel.

a reply to: Mike Stivic

I've always sort of lived in the past.
Like computer hardware and software ... keep the legacy stuff in case the newfangled gets messed up.

So I've got all these favorite 16 bit programs that won't run on a 64 bit platform! And my 486 broke, and I can't find any replacement parts !

Anyway, by the time I got around to buying an 8 track player, they were already pretty much replaced by cassette players. My first two 8 track tapes to go with my new ( clearance discounted ) 8 track player were Songs From The Woods and ELO's Out Of The Blue.


I would comment on my juvenile late night antics, but sometimes I'm afraid that the Statute of Limitations might someday get retroactively repealed.

It was just a matter of time, and listening to Thick as a Brick while reading along with the lyrics.

Then I remembered the depths of heartless cruelty.

I put it in a separate thread in case you'd just as soon skip it.

Warning: A Crime Against Humanity

a reply to: pthena

I love this album from my favorite band. I have seen them in concert many times. Great band and great live. Ian Anderson is a music god.

a reply to: Metallicus

On Anderson, I found this in wikipedia about his flute lessons:

I didn't want to be just another third-rate guitar player who sounded like a bunch of other third-rate guitar players. I wanted to do something that was a bit more idiosyncratic, hence the switch to another instrument. When Jethro Tull began, I think I'd been playing the flute for about two weeks. It was a quick learning curve ... literally every night I walked onstage was a flute lesson.
en.wikipedia.org...(band)

Now I'm going to have to listen to the whole Stand Up album. Can't remember the last time I did.

Let me see if this works.

youtube.com/watch?v=Kq5zTznlSJI&list=PL633C6E54B799D2A0&index=1

So you can hear the whole album starting with:

Then once the youtube page is open you should be able to copy &list=PL633C6E54B799D2A0&index=1 into the address bar.

The cool thing is that SquidwardTentacles90 has the lyrics for each song under the SHOW MORE button. Except Bouree, which is all instrumental, lots of flute.