Sometimes, I can’t avoid it, but I try not to be nostalgic.
Sure, I miss places and people I used to know, but I fight mightily against “things were better were when I was a kid,” because when a 50-plus man says that what he means is he misses being young and strong. That’s why so many guys my age own so many guns, because we know we can’t win fistfights anymore.
If you want to know the truth of it, “I Love Lucy” wasn’t hilarious, it was stupid. Tupac Shakur wrote better lyrics than The Beatles. The cars we think of as “classic” were junkers after 50,000 miles.
You start thinking that everything was better when you were a young man, you end up being mad as hell because there isn’t a two-hour prayer session at the beginning of every public school day, you start claiming that “the slaves didn’t have it so bad,” and you end up voting for Donald Trump.
This old guy ain’t goin’ out like that, yo.
Of all the improvements made in my lifetime, two stand out.
The first is the clock in your car. Back when your dashboard clock had hands, like a pocket watch, the clock stopped working two weeks after you bought the car. Right now, I’m driving a 16-year-old Ford pickup and the digital dash clock is accurate to the minute.
And the second is Peeps, those marshmallow chicks people eat at Easter.
I love those things. When I was a kid, they were yellow, they were chicks and they were overly sweet. That was it for choices.
Last week, my wife, who knows I love Peeps, came home with maple brown sugar Peeps dipped in white chocolate. There are Halloween Peeps shaped like tombstones and chocolate-flavored Peeps and raspberry Peeps.
Peep technology has exploded in my lifetime and, best of all, they’re still made in the USA.
I don’t think most people think about either dashboard clocks or Peeps. You want to know what time its, you look at the dashboard clock. If you want to buy Fourth of July Peeps shaped like stars and sprinkled with red and blue sugar, you can.
Instead of rejoicing in these things, we complain about football players kneeling during the national anthem. Hell, maybe the guy says a prayer while he kneels. If he’s being patriotic and praying at the same time, he’s qualified to be the governor of any state that produces good barbecue.
I’ll be 60 next May. I will die sooner rather than later.
I will not go down sucking on the bitter lemon of nostalgia. I will not listen to the oldies station. I will not live in the gated community. I will not worship Jesus as the world’s biggest spoilsport. I will not follow some orange-haired old man into hell.