Nostalgia.
 

I've been very reflective and nostalgic lately. Don't know why - guess it's the time of year..I miss getting new school supplies and clothes and the excitement of a brand new school year!

Anyway, this morning on my bike ride I passed by a high school and the kids were holding summer band. They were learning how to march and they appeared to be doing it the exact way my high school band used to...broken up into small groups while a section leader teaches freshman to march.

A big well of emotion and nostalgia came over me while watching - then I realized I probably looked creepy watching high school kids march around with a big smile on my face.

Also - on my bike ride I rode through some sprinklers (on purpose) and the smell/feel totally reminded me of when my grandma and I would go on summer morning walks and we'd go to a park and walk through the sprinklers..good times.

This time of year always makes me very nostalgic - there's a certain sadness attached as I realize those days are forever gone...

Anyone else nostalgic about anything?

I get nostalgic about EVERYTHING...ALL THE TIME. I'll hear a song or see something that reminds me of high school or when I first started going out and was "fresh meat" - and it makes me sad in a way, but happy to have those memories too I guess. I'm such a sappy sentimentalist.

Ah glad I'm not the only one :laugh: A lot of it is also that because of MySpace I've gotten back in touch with so many people from high school - lots of great memories. And no credit card bills...sigh.

let me tell you just HOW sentimental I am. back in junior high I decided to keep everything...like ev.ery.thing. so I have 2 suitcases full of every note I passed around or was passed to me, programs from all kind of school functions, menus from different restaurants...on and on and on :lol:

OMG!!! Me toooo!!! :laugh: During my move I revisited some of the notes -and then got an amazing surprise in my e-mail. A friend mine found one of our notes and scanned it and e-mailed it to me...we used to draw a lot in our notes :laugh: I'm going to have to scan one to get my full point across.

But yeah, I've got boxes of the notes I passed in class, band programs, medals etc...kind of sad really but I enjoy going back every now and again.

oh we are sick.

"yes, hello, can you please clear two padded rooms? thanks."

Sick, yes. And sad...but here is the note my friend sent me - this is the kind of crap I save :laugh: Oh..and I was the artist lol...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...nasdrawing.jpg

We were such retards :laugh:

Bleh
 

I never get nostalgic about school, but about just being a kid....alllllll the time. The other day I was thinking about how I used to lay on the floor at night, and listen to the radio for hours on end. The lights on my old stereo looked like an airplane cockpit. :laugh: My 9th birthday party was my favorite. Had it at a local skating rink (no longer there :( ) and this boy I liked was there in his little league outfit. Sigh....yeah, I miss being a kid.

Musically...
 

I am head in on a nostalgia trip (Right at this moment as I type this up I have Motley Crue blasting through 460W of JVC speakers within 3 feet on me-Really vibrates the hell outta the walls!!!!)

Seems that once my Mother passed from this worldly existence, my taste in music went immediately back to the music I grew up listening to during the mid-to-late 80's, With more modern heavy **** tossed in.

Maybe the change in music taste & my nostalgic trip has to do with that was the music of my life when my Mom was still here...And she liked it! Hell, She drove me to see Motley Crue/Whitesnake (Among others-And there were tons of others) in Tulsa in 1986, And waited out in the car in the parking lot while I rocked out.

My Mom was and will forever (Even in the afterlife) be a rocker!!!

Brian "My hair is longer than most females these days" j.

i've been getting nostalgic a lot lately for two reasons. 1) i'm not going to school in the fall, and 2) my brother left for the army in june. i was driving up to my grandparents' house yesterday, and it hit me halfway there that he wasn't going to be there (he used to spend most of his summers there), and i started to cry. :(

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I thoroughly hated school, couldn't wait for it to be over, and have never missed it for a second. I hated every minute I lived at home with my parents. I can't even stand to visit.

I was a total basket case in junior high and high school. I wasn't popular and I had no friends. Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club? That was me. What's to be nostalgic about? :shrug:

I have never, not even for a moment, felt nostalgic for my high school years. When I graduated, so many adults said to me, "in five years, you're going to wish you were back in school." It's been 16 years, and high school is still the last place I'd ever wish to be. Though if I had then, the kind of confidence I have now -- high school would have been a very different experience.

I do, however, sometimes feel nostalgic for times when my grandparents and other loved ones were still living, and things like that. I am VERY sentimental when it comes to those kinds of things.

oh, i should clarify that i'm not nostalgic for HS. HS sucked. i guess i'm not nostalgic about school, i'm just sad i won't be going.

I know what you're saying...I don't miss school necessarily, just the friends and **** I used to pull. I was fairly popular, in homecoming stuff all the time so I don't have horrid memories, but it's more about looking back at friendships, etc.

I will never...
 

be nostalgic for my school years...Abso-tively hated school, Which is ironic because I attended college/tech. school from 1988-1991 with only a 3 day gap between my high school graduation (Hehe, I refused to attend the HS graduation ceremony for my own selfish reason which was I preferred to spend the evening listening to music over pomp & popularity contest that was that ceremony-Yes, Pissed off my asshat of a guidance counselor since she even tried to bribe me to attend, But f**k her...My Mom understood my decision and never questioned it ever. I did take the cap & gown and donated it to a student who could not otherwise afford 'em) and the start of tech. school.

Nostalgic for my school days?

When, depending on who you asked, I was either

A) a gothic, devil-worshipping lesbian

or

B) a skanky slut that was banging every friend (male, female, gay, straight, whatever) I ever had


I think not.

Sounds similar...
 

to people thinking I was either gay or a Satanist...Wrong on both accounts (I dated girls who did not live in my hometown-Not those who were into the popularity class warfare BS)

I cant help it that I am a good listener, and tend to get along better with females than males.

People thought you were gay??? Seriously? That's just bizarre.

I mean, I know why people thought I was a lesbian - not only were many of my friends gay but I had come out as bisexual and the morons at my school heard "lesbian." Those same morons also equated not believing in God to worshipping the devil. (Nevermind that, in order to worship the devil, one must first believe in him).

I think the slut rumors were started by an ex-boyfriend and a guy who wanted me but I had no interest in. Whatever.

And yet still some people don't understand why I haven't kept in touch with many of my classmates...

Only reason was...
 

because I had more females for friends than males...A most BS excuse if ya ask me.

Plus, When I was younger my eyelashes looked as if I wore eye liner, but I didnt wear any makeup unlike the goths & punks did...So some popular assclaps in school spread that I wore eyeliner.

I'm surprised a Columbine like incident didnt happen at my high school (My Senior class was small, only 600+ kids, but only 400 graduated due to stiffen of amount of credits needed to graduate-Overall my high school had about 1600 students for grades 10-12, 9th grade was still considered "Jr.High"-Of which there was about 1000 9th graders)...But we had racial riots instead (Most of the black students involved never started these any of these riots, the popular white kids did-Sadly, some of the black students were my friends since elementary and one of the leaders of the white kids was my cousin...Of course I stood behind my friends of color instead of standing behind someone of blood kin.)

Everytime I visit my hometown now, I drive by my ol' high school and roll down my window to let 'em know I think "they're number #1" (bka "Single digit salute")

Always have been. But I always want to be 8, and I want it to be the seventies and early 80's, it seems so much simpler, and yet cooler.

Everything was easy, and all I had to do was run around outside constantly and play, play, play. In real life I had to do our grocery shopping almost every day, but otherwise constant play. I was like a little ant, running everywhere all the time. Climbing trees, jumping rope, hide and seek, tag, stickball, bikes, tree forts, rubber balls, skating, climbing on roofs, gymnastics, eating plums from the trees - that was my life.
The summer I heard Stand Back was the best. Coincidentally, but still. And summer in general - playing outside from 8am to 9pm, till dark. Then sleeping outside. Running around barefoot, sucking water from any random faucet you could find, not wanting to stop playing to eat...so picking plums and figs off the trees. Just being like a filthy awesome wild animal. :laugh: I was always so upset if I had to play inside for any reason. I would just read.

I was so strong and free and sassy, I was good at everything, and my responsibilities, though a lot for my age, were easy. And most life pain was in the future, or just beginning. The personality was still a possibility then, still forming, I could still be anything, and dream about how wonderful everything might be.

Nostalgic? yeah, just a little. :p

School was fine, mostly good, but I don't get nostalgic for it much, except for the things you get to do in school that you can't do when grown. Like, play sports all year round plus be in drama, plus choir, plus band - you know, all those fun things, all encased within each school year, within each day. As an adult, you just can't do that many different fun things within a day.

So sometimes I'll walk by a field and see a girls softball practice and be nostalgic. Or when I see girls volleyball on TV. Basically, I'm just really pissed that I have to work, instead of doing all the fun stuff instead, and always have been. I definitely feel like working is life wasted. :laugh:

That's hella dumb (Hella... showin' my California blood there... :laugh: ).

Which reminds me of why people thought I was goth... because I wore a lot of black. Yeah. Black shirts that had **** like Tom Petty, Jimi Hendrix, and The Beatles, 'cause they're so goth. :rolleyes:

On another note, talk about a blast from the past. Ho****. I just got a MySpace message from a guy I went to school with (and who I haven't seen in the 7 years since then) which was probably one of the must unlikely friendships I ever formed. He was reasonably popular, good looking, and really into rap/hip hop/r & b. He hung out with the "rappers." I? Was very unpopular, not-so attractive, and really into, well, Fleetwood Mac. I hung out with the queers and the general misfits.

Our only common ground? Writing. He was a poet. I wrote short stories. Go figure.

Definitely going to baseball games at County Stadium in Milwaukee. I miss that place.

They're cutting down the woods we used to hang out in in high school. Building patio homes. :rolleyes: F*ckers.

Don't they know that was my party spot? The place I had my first real makeout session at? The place I first got stoned? Huh? Don't they? Don't they know it was where I first stayed out all night after lying to the 'rents about where I was? Huh? HUH?!?!

I guess I can be nostalgic at times....:o

About once a year, I go and drive by the first place I first got high(where we used to camp). God, what I'd give to be 16 again. In the summer, my friends and I went camping like FOUR nights a week. Just an excuse to get completely ****faced drunk. We could always get beer. Hell, I usually "stocked" about 3 cases in the trunk of my car!
Young, popular, good looking, with a fast car, and more friends than you could count . Take me back!!!!!!!!! I wanna go!!!!!!
NOW, I'm being nostalgic.
I've never had that much fun, since then.:confused: :confused: :confused:

:laugh: Serioulsy. Last night an old friend reminded me of this time I house sat at this place with a hot tub..it was way out in the middle of the desert - me and a gaggle of friends got into the hot tub, played truth or dare, bathed (in suits) in the lady's GIANT bath tub :laugh: Those were the days....sigh.

Those WERE the days. All else has paled in comparison(how sad is that?!). And I've become somewhat of a hermit since then. One by one, all of those friends moved away, or are too busy with their own lives now. I rarely even bump into the one or two that still live here. And it seems like all the people I meet now, just have too much baggage(somebody posted about this here, a few days ago- that how you pass 30, and the people you meet just aren't.........worthy of your time).

Am I the only one who feels their "present day" is way better than the past?

NO! Don't get me wrong, I had a blast. But I much prefer now to then. As high school senior Randall "Pink" Floyd said in the movie Dazed and Confused:

"If I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."

How could "now" be better than when you were 8? It defies reason.

Well, not to get all heavy, but when I was 8, I was awkward and shy and was already getting told that "boys don't like Wonder Woman and Charlie's Angels -- boys like sports" or that "boys don't dance around like that" or "boys don't run like that."

Now, I can be myself and I can be into whatever the hell I want to be into, without worrying what anyone else thinks of me or whether or not I fit in somewhere.
So, for me, "now" is waaay better than "then." :nod: :D

Wow. This is the best piece of prose poetry I've ever read on this forum. The quickening & the wistfulness & the passion make your average Stevie Nicks song look like waffle batter.

It reminds me of Agee's "Knoxville: Summer 1915"

And yes I remember drinking water in the summer from every spigot in the neighborhood, & the water had that "pipe" taste that nonetheless was so refreshing!

Well...
 

I am nostalgic for the gasoline prices that were at the pump during my high school years, under $1.00 a gallon

I LOVED the taste of hose water!!!! :blob1:

The apartment I was living in in Rochester - once in a while I'd get a glass of water from the faucet -and it tasted like hose water (worrisome, yes - but I enjoyed it) :laugh:

My granmda had a pool - so we were flush in water - but it was funny because I remember the sprinklers would come on and we'd jump out of the pool to run through the sprinklers :laugh: I loved summer back then.

Really? You're teasing, probably. :p That's okay. You know, my favorite poem is Fern Hill. Anyhoo. That pipe taste is awesome. In one of our houses, and various playgrounds, we would suck water off those flat lawn spigots? You know, they're just little round disks that barely stick up out of the ground and spray water at intervals?

Oh, that makes sense. That sucks. I wasn't teased because I didn't play with dolls, and did like sports - and played them like a boy.
Doesn't seem fair, does it? :p Course, I was pretty aggressive as a child - whoever teased me was calling for a quick fight. I do remember arguing with boys all the time, though, for positions and that.

No I am NOT teasing. Nor do I know what in tarnation Fern Hill is. But here is a portion of Agee's text:
_____________________________________________________
It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds' hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a quiet auto; people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.

A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter, fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew.

Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose.

Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes.

Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there. They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine, with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.

^^^^
Oh, I see what you mean. That is a lovely little piece, too, I'm glad you posted it.

Um...Fern Hill - I thought everyone knew it. It's one of those "obvious" poems everyone has to read in school, by a most obvious poet, Dylan Thomas. It's terribly sad, in a way. Its nostalgia echoes my own. I'm suprised Stevie has not based a song on it; I'll be damned if I don't cry every time I read it. :laugh: The most sad parts are bolded for your convenience.

I *stay* nostalgic. It's pathetic how much I tend to live in the past. My 20th HS reunion was a couple of week-ends ago and I was really sad to have missed it. It's not so much that I loved High School (I didn't), it's a lot of other things. My dad was still alive (he died when I was 17), my family was still together- I was innocent of so many things. Of course I felt very angsty and complicated but you know, weren't we all? My rough times were actually in elementary school (the years Amber writes about). I was very shy and umpopular as a little girl. I have virtually no memory of a couple of those years. I really came out of my shell in High School (thankfully). Okay, enough about me... :o

That is interesting, and not pathetic. :xoxo: I've noticed others here who are very cool say they were shy and/or unpopular in elementary school. I'm glad you came out of your shell. :nod:
If I had lost my dad, I would feel exactly the same as you. I'm nostalgic for all the great times me and my dad spent together when I was little, playing basketball, and tennis, and catch, singing in the car, and being stupid and funny - he was so kind and silly.

I always wonder why such young kids are shy - how do they learn that so quickly, so young? Because, you know, self consciousness seemingly shouldn't develop that much until a bit later in life.
But I guess there is probably some basic kinds of personality - some respond to adversity or the unknown by being shy and quiet, some the opposite. I was loud and talkative and aggressive and unpopular. :laugh: JK - It's the same as now - some liked me, others hated me, there were arguments, etc. I usually had one best friend.
But the point is, I didn't care, I didn't have the level of self awareness to discern that any way I was acting was less than desireable, or that anyone should reject me for it. It was awesome! :laugh: I feel like maybe little kids who are shy for some reason do learn earlier to care? Or to guage people's reactions to them? :confused:
I'm definitely much more shy as an adult. Mainly from people over time being all "you're so weird!" or not getting what I was saying, so then I realized maybe a lot of times people wouldn't get what I was saying, so maybe I should say less things. You know.

My dad was very special and here I am, over 20 years later missing him like crazy!

ANd what's so weird is that you can look at kids with siblings who are completely different. You can say that they were raised in the same environment, but I think that regardless of that- children are treated differently by their parents. It is a very interesting thing to think about- why do some kids care so early in in life? Certainly they haven't had any major experiences where someone's reaction to them caused them to censor themselves? :confused: (me too-confused)

Thank you for thinking I'm not pathetic. :wavey:

Well, I think they have had those experiences in many cases - but so did I, and it just made me talk more when I left the house. That is why I was thinking people may have basic types of personalities - some withdraw more while some are more extroverted.