Blasts from the past
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
Every once in a while, a period of nostalgia sneaks up on me. It has happened recently.
Last week in this column, I mentioned Fred. I have lots of pictures of Fred from all over the U.S. (He and I traveled to 23 states together). This morning, I got them out and took a trip down memory lane with them. Bittersweet. I miss him terribly.
Our last long trip together was from home to Dallas for a few days, then up to Golden, Colo. for my oldest grandson’s birthday, then back home. It is was a great trip and neither of us knew it would be our last trip like that.
Within a month, I was sick (it was February 2017) and within 14 months, Fred was dead from congestive heart failure. For some reason, on that trip, I vividly remember going through Pueblo, Colo. in a light snowstorm. If you have never been to Pueblo, it is a bit shocking. A town of heavy industry (steel and cement), with lots of railroad tracks. Just not what you expect to see out west.
Then, my earworm for the last week has been “Sukiyaki” performed by Kyu Sakamoto. It is a haunting song, and a standalone tearjerker, if you know the English translation. It is the only Japanese language song to top the Billboard 100 (1963).
For some reason when I hear it, I think of Hillsboro in the early 1960s, a much simpler time indeed. Don’t have any particular Highland County setting to go with it, but there must be something in the back of my mind.
From there, I’ve made the mistake of going to YouTube this week. A&E did a marvelous piece on the “Rat Pack” which, of course, is a dialogue of the 1960s in and of itself. Sinatra, Martin, Davis and the rest were considered the coolest of the cool at the time. WLW Radio survived on their songs. I remember many times being in Charley Flannery’s milking parlor on McCoppin Mill Road with Rat Pack songs over WLW serenading the cows. Good times. I just didn’t know it then!
To top off the week, I spent some more YouTube time watching Johnny Carson’s last two shows. Mr. Carson’s show lasted more than 29 years. He was a class act, too. The best of the late-night crowd. Ever. But time marches on. Then, I realized that if I make it about another year and a half, my consultancy will have been as long as Johnny Carson’s tenure. Gulp.
I do my best to live in the modern world, understand what goes on in it and worry about the world we are leaving for our grandchildren. Will they get to live their lives under the U.S. Constitution? Can it survive?
I don’t worry about the world environmentally. This old earth has shown its ability time and again to repair itself. So far, the Constitution has kept things going politically here with its self-correcting features, but some days, I wonder.
Civility and incivility seem to run in cycles. Hopefully, this cycle of incivility will soon exhaust itself and we will go back to being a civil world again.
This is certain: Things will not stay the same as they are right now. This will be the startling lesson for the younger generations who think the world they live in now will be the one in which they grow old. Change is constant, and despite a trip down memory lane as I have described here, change will continue to happen. We don’t have to embrace it, but we must be cognizant of it.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
Every once in a while, a period of nostalgia sneaks up on me. It has happened recently.
Last week in this column, I mentioned Fred. I have lots of pictures of Fred from all over the U.S. (He and I traveled to 23 states together). This morning, I got them out and took a trip down memory lane with them. Bittersweet. I miss him terribly.
Our last long trip together was from home to Dallas for a few days, then up to Golden, Colo. for my oldest grandson’s birthday, then back home. It is was a great trip and neither of us knew it would be our last trip like that.
Within a month, I was sick (it was February 2017) and within 14 months, Fred was dead from congestive heart failure. For some reason, on that trip, I vividly remember going through Pueblo, Colo. in a light snowstorm. If you have never been to Pueblo, it is a bit shocking. A town of heavy industry (steel and cement), with lots of railroad tracks. Just not what you expect to see out west.
Then, my earworm for the last week has been “Sukiyaki” performed by Kyu Sakamoto. It is a haunting song, and a standalone tearjerker, if you know the English translation. It is the only Japanese language song to top the Billboard 100 (1963).
For some reason when I hear it, I think of Hillsboro in the early 1960s, a much simpler time indeed. Don’t have any particular Highland County setting to go with it, but there must be something in the back of my mind.
From there, I’ve made the mistake of going to YouTube this week. A&E did a marvelous piece on the “Rat Pack” which, of course, is a dialogue of the 1960s in and of itself. Sinatra, Martin, Davis and the rest were considered the coolest of the cool at the time. WLW Radio survived on their songs. I remember many times being in Charley Flannery’s milking parlor on McCoppin Mill Road with Rat Pack songs over WLW serenading the cows. Good times. I just didn’t know it then!
To top off the week, I spent some more YouTube time watching Johnny Carson’s last two shows. Mr. Carson’s show lasted more than 29 years. He was a class act, too. The best of the late-night crowd. Ever. But time marches on. Then, I realized that if I make it about another year and a half, my consultancy will have been as long as Johnny Carson’s tenure. Gulp.
I do my best to live in the modern world, understand what goes on in it and worry about the world we are leaving for our grandchildren. Will they get to live their lives under the U.S. Constitution? Can it survive?
I don’t worry about the world environmentally. This old earth has shown its ability time and again to repair itself. So far, the Constitution has kept things going politically here with its self-correcting features, but some days, I wonder.
Civility and incivility seem to run in cycles. Hopefully, this cycle of incivility will soon exhaust itself and we will go back to being a civil world again.
This is certain: Things will not stay the same as they are right now. This will be the startling lesson for the younger generations who think the world they live in now will be the one in which they grow old. Change is constant, and despite a trip down memory lane as I have described here, change will continue to happen. We don’t have to embrace it, but we must be cognizant of it.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.