DAZE GONE BY

I can think of younger days
When living for my life was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow
I was never told about the sorrow

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain falling down?
Tell me how can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go 'round?

How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Somebody please help me mend my broken heart
And let me live again

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
But we could never see tomorrow
It would be that no one, no one ever told us about the sorrow

So how can you mend a broken heart? And mine is
How can you stop the rain falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go 'round?

Lyrics and music by Al Green

When you reach the age of maturity, which is about 65, you start to remember things that occurred when you were young and while you took them for granted, you never thought you would ever think about them later in life. Then something triggers a memory and it all comes back again, just like yesterday.

As a young teenager, about 12 or 13, I had a neighbor named Mr. Haller. Mr. Haller was a great guy and the father of an older girl who was friends with my older sister Tessie. (Much older) She was gorgeous and I remember being in love with her.

Mr. Haller was an enterprising man who had a paper route that he ran on the North Shore of Long Island. This route was in the hills and dales of the North Shore and it was a bumpy, busy ride.

Recently on Facebook, someone posted a picture of the Volkswagon Beetle, and it triggered the memory of that paper route, and my sitting in the back seat as Mr. Haller took the beetle and drove like he was simulating a roller coaster ride.

On these hot muggy days of summer, when I helped him on a weekend, tossing newspapers out the windows, the jerk start stopping made me physically ill, wanting to toss my cookies. I would sit for about 3 or 4 hours nauseated by the whole ordeal! The late mornings would turn to afternoons, up and then down and then sharp turns left and right and the sicker I got. The thought of eating anything was out of the question, and he would carry a jar of rhubarb juice, taking swigs out of it, and the odor would make me even sicker. My fingers would dry up from handling the newspapers for so long, and even the smell of the newsprint would add to my olfactory and gastroenterological misery! I was an unhappy camper.

But he paid me a fair wage and at my age, I wasn’t old enough for a regular job, so this was a blessing, and besides, there is so much torture you can impose on your 4 sisters before even that gets stale.

It taught me a lesson, that if you want something in life, yu have to pay for it, even money.