Looking Back

Looking Back
I have often been accused of spending too much time looking back, reminiscing, bringing up the “good ol’ days.” It’s not that I don’t enjoy good today days and good today friends and today experiences. I posted on August 7, 2009, a poem I had written many years ago titled The Good Ol’ Days that touched on this subject a bit.
But, sometimes the good ol’ days come at you suddenly and without warning. It was just before the big shake here in Eureka that my wife thought I was having a heart attack. I was sitting at the computer and she was in the other room when she heard me yell. She thought I was in pain. I wasn’t. I had just received an email from someone I had not heard from in 43 years. And it wasn’t just any someone. It was M/Sgt Elton Britton, the man who had formed and directed the Cam Ranh Choraleers, the choir I sang with while stationed in Cam Ranh Bay Air Base in Vietnam from 1966 until 1967. It was a wonderful experience. The Ed Sullivan Show sent a crew to Vietnam to film us for the Ed Sullivan Christmas Show that aired Dec. 18, 1967 – a show I have yet to see. I have been trying for years to get a copy of that tape or to hear from somebody from the choir. Then, just before our house and the rest of Humboldt County, started shaking, up pops this email from Sgt. Britton.
And that’s one of the joys of enjoying spots in the past. If looking back into our past is such a sin, why do we take pictures? Why do we keep diaries? Why do we jot down notes? Why do we collect souvenirs? We have a thing with numbers – 10s and 50s. We like to look back at the year in pictures, the decade in the news, what happened 50 years ago. Fifty years ago – 1960 – I met the girl at San Rafael High School who became my first love. And I still keep in touch with her.
But 1960 was much more for all of us alive at that time: The Kennedys – John, Bobby, Teddy, Jacqueline, Ethel – Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Angela Davis. It was racial tensions, moon landings, assassinations, Vietnam, hippies, Woodstock, sexual revolution, Timothy Leary, LSD. And so much more.
I have copious notes about the three years I spent at military school between the ages of 13 and 15. The school is putting together its 140th anniversary special to be published in May and is asking for contributions. My memories came in handy. Believe me, not all those notes will be printable. But I am glad I kept those notes. I am glad I delved into the past. And maybe I’ll do more with them. Maybe not.
I had a wife who told me that her previous husband made her throw away all of her pictures and memorabilia of her previous friends when she got married. I thought that was terrible. I would never make such a request and would never bow to such a request. Those memories are part of our lives. The friends we had are part of our lives. They shouldn’t be thrown away except by choice.
I have my memories, but I also have my todays and tomorrows. I have choir rehearsal tomorrow.