I was driving home from broadcasting a basketball game in Norton Friday night listening to my 1970s playlist. I go to my playlist or Spotify at night because I never really find anything good on the radio at night. That’s probably a topic for another time but I was on Spotify playing the Billboard hits of 1977. Hey! What can I say? I’m old!
The song “Year of the Cat” by Al Stewart came on and it immediately took me back. I found myself doing the old-guy thing: “Ah those were the days!” After a few minutes I found myself wondering, “Were they though?”
We all tend to look back on the good old days and I think, at least sometimes, we remember them fondly but, when you think about it, there was probably a lot less stress back then.
Things were different. People got along. Our bodies were maybe strong and healthy. Maybe that’s true but were those days really less stressful?
Now it’s true, we might have been single and unattached with no children to take care of. We may of been just starting out on our jobs and didn’t have the career pressure we would find in later years. The more I thought about it I began to think maybe we look back on those days with the clarity of what we know now and the lessons we’ve learned along the way.
I am much more comfortable with who I am now as compared to the me of the mid-70s. I was still trying to figure myself out and where I fit in things personally and professionally. There was SO MUCH I had to learn even though I probably never realized it at the time.
Looking back on it I can remember sitting at the table at the end of every week. I had just cashed my paycheck and I had separate envelopes for the rent, gas and electric, car payment and groceries. If you were lucky you had money left over after paying the bills. On a bad week you would juggle which envelopes got filled that week. We would go grocery shopping and buy Spaghetti with pasta sauce, no meatballs or meat sauce because that cost extra. Remember when buying a name brand instead of the generic meant you had a good week? And we look back at that as “the good old days?”
One thing to consider when we look back is that, most of the time, we remember the good parts. Who wants to bother with the bad times? And I think we also put a rosy filter on things. The tight budget is cute now but I remember it as a struggle at the time. I think I had one suit back in the day and it was probably polyester. And having a suit tailored? That was only for the bankers or politicians.
Were they “the good old days” or were they just regular days where we like to remember the good parts? Perhaps we’ve exaggerated a bit when it comes to the details. It’s all a journey and hopefully we’ve learned some things along the way.
I do think that music has the most power when it comes to bringing back memories. It’s probably second only to actual photographs of the time.
Here’s hoping this week brings some good music with some great memories whether they are enhanced a little or not.
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