Romanticizing personal history

By Jim Killebrew

[November 23, 2013]  I have been seeing posts on my Facebook page that are drooling for the decade of the 1950s from people of my age group who are relating fond memories of those times. I, too, am a member of the group that grew up during the decade of the '50s.

I have looked back at that period with a longing desire to relive some of the positive experiences I had as a kid growing up in a poor family, extended with grandparent, parents and siblings under one roof. If my memory serves me well, those times and things were good and mostly secure, knowing I was safe in my parents' house. I had freedom to roam the streets of Muskogee on my bike, unafraid because we didn't experience then what we do now with the pervasive violence. In fact, of one thing I was acutely aware, to my chagrin: Even the neighboring adults assumed the role of surrogate parents to "call me down" if I should stray too far from righteousness. Perhaps that was true since most people had a general sense of similar values relative to what was right and what was wrong. All in all, I had a great time and remember the experiences fondly.

Now, as I look back on those fuzzy times, remembering all the various things that seemed so good, I have longed for our current times in some ways to return to those "thrilling days of yesteryear," when it seemed everything had a proper place in life. Of course that is impossible, but it is always fun to reminisce.

I wonder, however, if my modern, 21st-century remembering simply does not have the power of experiential thinking to view that wonderful decade with anything but the power of the 6- to 16 year-old-brain with which I experienced it. While I was blissfully tiptoeing through the 1950s tulip beds, having the time of a young boy's life, what issues were abounding that my dad might have had on his mind at the time? I cared nothing in those days for the daily news on the world, national or local scene. My greatest concern was if my parents might make me go to bed before the Red Skelton radio show was over. At the same time, however, my dad and mom might have worried about the electric bill or the grocery bill that had to be paid.

Since our mind can really only think in terms of what our experience and knowledge of the time was, it is impossible now to compare those times with now, since we are always in the present. We never actually live in the past, nor do we ever live in the future with our current brains, experience and knowledge. We always live in the dependency of where we are now, because yesterday we didn't know what we know today, and tomorrow we will know more than what we know today. Further, our thinking today is accomplished with the most mature and knowledgeable, experienced mind we have ever had. This, of course, barring any physiological setbacks.

Therefore, from my perspective, I must guard myself against the urge to "live in the past" because it seemed more pleasant, because in reality it might not have been so. But I must also resist the urge to project myself into my future at the expense of damaging my present. What I am doing now might very well improve what my future will hold.

[By JIM KILLEBREW]