Nostalgia inside out

This came up on Facebook recently:  “People born in the 50’s have lived in seven decades, two centuries and two millenniums (sic).  We had the best music, fastest cars, drive-in theaters, soda fountains, and happy days.  And we are not even that old yet.  We’re just that cool.”

Sounds a little desperate, doesn’t it?  A little grasping. 

I mean really.  “We’re just that cool”?!  Sounds like something Eric Cartman would say.

If you have to announce it, you’ve already diminished your claim.  When did you ever hear any truly cool person claiming to be cool?  News flash – if they did, they were automatically disqualified from the category.

John Wayne?  Katharine Hepburn?  James Dean? Grace Kelly?  We knew they were cool.  They were not concerned with it.  That’s bad form.  Mick Jagger? John Lennon?  Forgetaboutit!

Also, if you break down that Facebook proclamation, what’s really there?  Having lived through decades and across centuries in and of itself is not sufficient to bestow coolness.  Although tortoises are cool.  And the Parthenon. 

You cannot diminish the music, that’s true. Elvis.  The Beatles.  Lynyrd Skynyrd. Jimi Hendrix.  Janice Joplin.  Aretha Franklin.  Come on!

But also, the Black Keys.  JohnLegend.  Nora Jones.  Uh, Maroon 5?  OK.  I’m in foreign territory here, but I’m making a point! 

We did have some cool cars back in the day.  Matter of fact, Mr. Plath and I still have my dad’s ’63 Corvette.  Hard to argue with a Split Window Coupe.  Do you think I’m cooler now that I’ve mentioned it?  Maybe I should have told you sooner. 

The past tense though – “we had the fastest cars.”  Even the goober who penned the post gave himself away with that.  Maybe we were bringers of cool, but we don’t have exclusive rights to it.

Drive-in theaters?  That’s it?  That’s what we’re gonna wave in people’s faces and say, “Neener Neener!”? 

I just think this guy was having a lonely night with Andy and Opie and his high school year book.  And all he could come up with was soda fountains!  “Happy Days”…was he referring to the Good Ole Boy heydays of men dominating everything or the Viet Nam war?  He surely lost his train of thought.

Dude!  If you want to put a generation on a pedestal, you might mention the first artificial heart, unveiling the structure of DNA, eradicating smallpox or pioneering organ transplants? 

Space exploration!  Duh!

Boomers can point with a sense of pride to the Civil Rights movement, inception of the environmental movement or the women’s liberation movement – even though, yes, all of those are still works in progress – we tipped the dominoes.

It just makes us older folks – “we’re not even that old yet” – (he didn’t realize what including those telltale qualifiers does to his credibility) seem stuck.  Too much looking back and saying, “Me, me, me!”

Funny thing is, I agree with the guy.  We are pretty cool.  But it’s completely uncool to demand the acknowledgement when there is so much cool stuff going on around us.  So much talent.  So much creativity.  And energy! 

Start with the internet and your Smart Phone.  A library in your pocket!  Wireless everything.  GPS. 
Jump from there to all manner of technology.  If you can live without it…well face it – You cannot.  I don’t want to go without the backup camera in my car.  Or Netflix!  Pandora!  Very cool.

I have a golf app that tells me I’m farthest from the hole.  Again.  And what would life be without Words with Friends?

I don’t think I’m the only Boomer who orders her meds online.  They bring them to the house for me!  Vegetables at a keystroke.  And shoes!!  Car parts.  Puppy food.  J

We had our glory days, to be sure.  But the beat goes on and thank God for that!  We are in the capable hands of some extremely cool younger people. 

They’re making some cool cars – especially those retro Mustangs – and face it, IMAX tops the drive in.  A Frappuccino beats a root beer freeze, sometimes.

Their enlightened attitudes toward the treasure of their parents and grandparents speaks well of them.


I’ll bet they’d even like Neil Young – “Old man, look at my life.  I’m a lot like you were.”

The vicissitudes of humility

I suffer from anticipatory funk.
 

It’s a disorder whereby I accept an invitation to an event – nothing threatening or weird.  Maybe even something I’ve always wanted to do. 

I mark my calendar and begin to make preparations.  I tell my friends and family who coo over me and tell me how they want to be just like me someday.  My self-esteem puffs up and my posture gets better. 

Then, behind the scenes, in a wadded up cranny of my perverse little brain, like the spore of a shitake mushroom, a contrary idea finds footing.  Really?  It says.  Really…you’re planning to do that?  Oh.  Well.  Good luck with that.  No, really.  Good luck. 

Oh sinister little fungi!  How you wheedle and wend you way into a person’s consciousness!  

It’s not long at all before my personal portabella field has proliferated.  It has grown from a niggling sense of nostalgia into full-blown trepidation.  From oh!  I’ll miss my husband and my kitties to I just don’t want to go!  I wish I didn’t have to go!  Why oh why did I ever say I’d go!? 

I can’t say where this affliction originated.  Maybe it’s an offshoot of what I call the “Avatar” syndrome.  (I used to call it the “Sound of Music” syndrome, but I’ve lived long enough now that I’ve had to update the reference.  The dynamics are the same.) 

A new movie is released with enormous fanfare.  It’s the best movie ever!  Oh, the drama!  Oh, the laughter!  Oh, the special effects!  Movie making will never be the same!  OMG you MUST see “Avatar.”  

“Avatar” was good.  I’m not saying it wasn’t good.  But honestly, admit it; it wasn’t THAT good.  Was it? 

Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t listened to the hoopla.  No movie could measure up to the level of mental hype I generated.  Man I wanted to see that show! 

But I came out of the theatre humming that old Peggy Lee song, “Is that all there is?”  (Please let me know right away if you know of a cooler, more current musical expression of disappointment.) 

I know it’s on me now.  I have to gear down and adjust my expectations.  I don’t like cultivating cynicism, but a tiny thread of doubt makes for pleasant surprises instead of colossal letdowns. 

On occasion I’ve let the funk take charge.  When an event swells in my field of vision I’ll make an excuse and duck out.  It’s almost physical, my reaction.  Fight or flight.  Something seizes me and I just turn and run!  It feels so good to escape.  Freedom!  No pressure.  No expectations.  Only a little guilt and that can be managed.  

Once I signed up for one of those “ropes” courses.  You know, the ones where you’re strapped into a harness and walk the high wire with your friends “on bole,” protecting you from falling and building a bond that surpasses all human bonds.  I freaked out.  Feigned a cold sore or something.  Didn’t go. 

And then, just like John Lennon warned, instant karma.  I regretted my cowardice.  I saw that that opportunity would not present itself again.  I had a chance to revel in a unique experience, but I stayed home in my pj’s.  What a wimp!  

No matter how good your excuse is, everybody knows you flaked out.  They’re nice to your face, but they know.  And of course, now they have the bond. 

So OK.  By the time you read this, I will have powered through my disability.  Like an agoraphobic in behavioral therapy I’ll have sucked it up and stepped into the open.  I can only hope I don’t look like Elvis squinting into the sun he seemed not to recognize after so much time in the basement of Graceland. 

I’ll be midway through the trip I’d begun to dread.  I’ll be having a great time, smiling, making new friends, learning things a person simply cannot learn by staying home, safe, at her keyboard.   

Of course the downside of success is the disorder that accompanies an adventurous spirit who sallies forth conquering the petty fears of the weaklings around her:  Insufferable competence.  Its symptoms – infuriating graciousness, knowing looks and strutting.   

I certainly hope I don’t succumb.