Nostalgia Strikes Again

As I’ve gotten older, I find the tendency to look back on my life becomes ever more prevalent. I realized just how idyllic my childhood was, an impression that never occurred to me while I was actually experiencing it. That’s the normal human condition, not having experienced anything else, it just felt that this was normal, something everybody had. I say this despite the parents’ divorce and the other sundry challenges life threw at me. This realization has been embellished since I retired from the Army and reconnected with so many of my friends from that era. One of those friends posted a couple pictures on Facebook yesterday that set off this latest bout of nostalgia. She posted some pictures from the elementary school where we shared 4^th and 5^th grade. I hadn’t seen the inside of that building in sixty years so I was struck by the memories that came flooding back when I saw them.

Lincoln School Hallways

Now a Charter School

Stairs Down to Kindergarten Area
Where we Used to Go to Get Our Afternoon Milk 

To demonstrate that my fascination with nostalgia is not limited to my childhood and home town, I was struck in similar fashion during a Facetime call with my Favorite Panamanian on Monday. She drove down to our condo to start the re-opening effort with a meeting with the cleaner. As soon as she showed me the condo, I felt that urge. I felt pulled south immediately. That condo has certainly become our second home and seeing it brought back all the memories it has bestowed upon us over the past few years. The fact that we’ll be back there in less than three weeks might have had something to do with that as well. My wife is winding up her trip home and will be back in the house on Thursday, so the cleaning effort will start immediately (for me).

Wife with Sisters and Mom This Past Weekend

The View I can't Wait to Get Back To

Since I’s been so quiet around the house (see below), I took in a movie at the local cinema yesterday. Silent Night was anything but quiet with all the explosions and gunfire but there wasn’t a single line of dialogue in the movie. The hero, after seeing his young son gunned down by a stray bullet in a gang drive by, is shot in the vocal cords rendering him voiceless. John Woo directed, so the action was his usual awesome, along with his signature fluttering birds. The lack of dialogue hurt though as it was hard to connect with the characters, although it made a comment on today’s society dependence on texting. Joel Kinnaman reinforced his action credentials and added some depth to the suffering father. It took a while for the Woo level action to start and the film dragged awaiting that. Who knew that the spoken word was needed in an action movie?

Seven movies fell in my A-Z watch (it’s been pretty boring around here), six keepers and one discard: The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, nowhere near as funny as first but then there’s still Salma; Hobbes and Shaw, two action heroes at their peaks; The Holiday, estrogen on overdrive but a simply great movie; Home Alone, another Christmas classic; Home Front, Staham tearing up the bayous; Homeward Bound, I defy anyone with a soul not to shed a tear when Shadow lopes over that final hill; and Hook, just a bad movie, especially when they get to Never Never land, surprisingly bad - discard.

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RECURRING CHARACTERS:                                     

ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete - my daughter in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter #3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor of the big river; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during him her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter; First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew – son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate– high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; Soxfather - my brother in law; Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course