Time smacks ya alongside the head

[duceditor]

The passage of time is an odd, odd, thing. We all experience it. We think we have the flow of it. And then, wham! it'll get you again.

I like to tease my wife Jan about it. How she went and flipped the numbers on me. Quick as a flash she won my heart completely when she was 17, and then went and flipped the numbers. She's now 71. "What the...?"

Same thing happened to me with guitar playing, and even more with my involvement with bands.

One day when I was what, maybe 12?, and my best bud shows up at my house carrying a guitar. "I'm learning to play it" says he. "I will too!' says I. Bang! Wham! My life flips updside down.

But then the passing of time thingie brought a 2nd "wham!" -- and this morning, in a sense, a 3rd one -- when I realized it had been 10 years (10 years!) since my involvement with that same bud and a few other talented guys we found along the way, became known. Out'a the blue that came. Suddenly I was back in the midst of it. An album coming out. Radio interviews. All other types of madness.

Yup. Ten years ago this month when "Ugly Things" magazine did a piece about us and suddenly my hidden (and, frankly, often forgotten - or at least ignored) past caught up with me.




In a real sense it was no big deal. Something that had happened years before just sort'a caught up with me. But living in a small arts community it -- the release of that album -- got some attention when the local rag picked up on it -- and suddenly people in shops started calling me aside, saying "Hey, we didn't know..."



So yeah, a little thing. No "biggie." But a friendly sort'a slap alongside the head. One that, again, had in a small way both made, and changed, my life.

Like meeting Jan did.

Or my bud showing up with that guitar.

Fun stuff, all. Life. Full of surprises.

But.. where did those 60+ years go? Or for that matter, these last 10?

And finding that Ugly Things magazine this morning made me think, and wonder. "Wham!" -What's coming next?

Yup! Right aside the head.

-don

 

[TheBoss72]

That's great stuff!

 

[lost sailor]

You know god invented time so everything would not happen all at once.

 

[miket1117]

nothing makes you feel older, faster than pondering how fast time has gone by. while it is great to reminisce, i'd rather not see my past in chunks of decades, but rather highlights with no specific markers to dates or ages. (i graduated high school... when!!!???)

this august, i officially turn 70 and am trying to forget that fact. can't escape the reality, but i don't have to dwell on it either. a modest "whoo-hoo!!" that i've made it this far, then back to actively mis-remembering my birth year. the older i get, the easier that gets anyway... lol.

be. here. now.

 

[M T Poteet]

"Ugly Things" magazine did a piece about us and suddenly my hidden (and, frankly, often forgotten - or at least ignored) past caught up with me."?
Come on, you've posted quite a bit about "The Abstracts" before.

 

[duceditor]

You know god invented time so everything would not happen all at once.

A great line!

a modest "whoo-hoo!!" that i've made it this far, then back to actively mis-remembering my birth year.

Getting that spirit in mind and heart is, I think, key.

Well it was for me, anyhow. A kid who saw for himself few prospects who now looks back at the wonder of it all.

(And I suspect that is true for many of us.)

"Ugly Things" magazine did a piece about us and suddenly my hidden (and, frankly, often forgotten - or at least ignored) past caught up with me."?

Come on, you've posted quite a bit about "The Abstracts" before.

Yes, but not before music historian Mike Dugo, and then Ugly Things editor Mike Stax, made me/us aware that the Abstracts were a known name.

My wonder at it all started only then. Or, more accurately when I leaned that Bomp Records' founder/owner Greg Shaw had been a fan, and had (without our even knowing it!) a few years earlier included "Always Always" on Bomp's "Essential Pebbles" CD series.







No, life is filled with surprises. Or can be, I suppose, if we remain open to them.

In the immortal words of Mrs. Castorini ("Moonstruck") "It ain't over until it's over!"



-don

 

[OOMTOM]

Someone once said Time is a Thief.
I just bought myself a new very cheap Cell Phone to replace my old one. In transferring my contacts list something went amiss and I ended up with three versions of my contacts and three versions of the IT guys contacts, one large list. I decided it would be quicker to run through the whole list and jot down only my few contacts and then delete the whole contacts list and re-enter mine.
What a time journey, some tinged with sadness when you come across those entries for people who passed away. Some tinged with regret for those you should have kept up with.
Yes Time is a Thief.

(And I suspect that is true for many of us.)

 

[duceditor]

What a time journey, some tinged with sadness when you come across those entries for people who passed away. Some tinged with regret for those you should have kept up with.

Oh, yes!

Like many of us, I expect, my life had distinct stages. The youthful school stage, the young 'making one's way' stage, the career stage, etc. Each had people that meant a great deal to me at the time, and many such still have a place in my heart.

In recent years I have made some attempt to reconnect with some of them. Some such efforts saw success (in some cases only after extensive effort). Other such attempts brought no success at all. And then there are the many, many who I just have't pursued for various reasons.

Yes, their place in the heart is secure. But were there/is there/have there been more concrete reasons to have 'been there for them'?

We live in the present. But as we age the past becomes not less "real," but for many of us, more real. And yet more distant. Harder to make real in the now.

Life truly is a wondrous thing.

I cannot personally imagine dealing with all of this without Christian faith.

-don