Nostalgia and Tradition

'Tis the season, a time for memories. Around this time of year, we start hearing those old Christmas Carols and we remember those halcyon days when our parents and other adult relatives were still alive. Grandpapa strumming his old guitar and mother at the blonde mahogany spinet, singing Deck the Halls.

They were indeed wonderful times, and I am pleased to be able to recall those memories still. (Even the time when uncle Harry arrived drunk, and then and fell off the sofa on the floor where he lay unconscious - to the utter horror of mother as well as the new neighbors who had come over for a glass of cheer. All very entertaining for a young lad.)

But alas, (in the words of one of my favorite modern visionaries) Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

A good friend of mine has recently taken to wallowing in the past on a public forum.

He laments the loss of decadent traditions that he and his Ivy League cronies had in their callow youth. He sees the relentless tide of progress as a bad thing. He wishes he could travel back to those prime times and relive the frivoloties of carefree college fraternal glee.

Most of us in the post war pre-boomer generation do not share those fond memories. We went into the service or to commuter colleges or joined a union and went to work after high school. We were definitely not the intellectual elites. Unless we had been star athletes in high school, we had not yet peaked. We were always looking to the future with optimism, because we believed that things would get better. (And they did.)

My friend notes that I am the founder (and still President) of the local Here and Now Society. We go around picketing historical sites. We proudly display plastic signs on our homes that show that they were built after 1960.

We accept, nay welcome, the tide of progress. We buy lottery tickets and go to casinos because we believe that luck can level the playing field that was unlevelled by fate. We don't spend time bitching about what's the matter with kids today. We look to the future with optimism and hope.

We love our fond memories, but do not wish to go back to the days of yore, before micro-brews and MP3, those black and white test pattern days when everyone smelled funny. We embrace reality with eyes wide open and welcome the adventure of each day.
That is here and now.
Who wants to join?