RENEWING THE PAST

Life can have its pleasures alright, just dip into your past and pull out some old friends, and you put life in reverse and look out the window of happiness, it all passes you by. Like fine wine the people that populate the past have a knack, almost a cue to make joy so complete as they grow with age and mellowness.

Recently, I had breakfast with a bunch of old school mates, and it kept taking me back to that kid who was 120 lbs., dark curly hair and a spot for any young lady in my heart. I had no cares in the world, nothing to worry about except some tests to enter college and a whole bunch of dreams worth remembering!

There was My Cousin Vinny and his sidekick Patty, my first and only 8th grade date, Martha and her husband Randy, and A lady who deserves her own zip code with all her children, grandchildren, and great, great grandchildren, Joanne, and of course Michelle, who organized many of the class reunions over the years keeping the spirit of Bellport High School and the class of '64 alive for all of her classmates.

If you want to be young again, maybe just for an hour, then you need to get together and take advantage of the wonderful memories you have stored in your hearts and souls. When you do, you are once more living at your folk's home, maybe driving an old car or seeing an old girlfriend, listening to those 45's and even eating that pizza or a soda from the gathering place where many more memories are stored. Your best friend will suddenly appear in your very mist like it was yesterday and say something again for your ear as you drift into the joys of sweet memories.

One of the things about life is that we do create and store our memories, that we pack them away on our mental shelves and move on to new events, events that become memories we can gather and include in that mental library, truly a gift from God.

As I write this, it is a beautiful midsummer day, the air is clear of humidity, but filled with golden sunshine, there is a hint of autumn and my ceiling fan gently moves the air about, all under the cloudless blue sky that peeks through my skylight. It is days like today that those memories become sweet, and the longing for those old days are fulfilled.