I just got through watching the dance scene for like everytime I get a chance to watch this old flick..

But to me, the dance scene sorta mesmerizes me b/c it's as though the amazingly beautiful "Time After Time" song by Cindi Lauper and the dance makes me think of when I was at my Jr./Sr. Prom as a Jr. and never danced b/c I was such a klutz of a kid that was still growing up and hadn't mastered the sublties of getting along with the opposite sex yet.... (But I sure loved ta take my '57 out AND beat on it everytime I got the chance!!!)......

Kinda like I wonder what it would be like to be the Millionaire and was dancing with two good looking lady classmates in a different, more successful life sorta deal???

Pay me no mind b/c I'm just an old man now and rambling on about what might have been after thinking about it after watching the dance scene in the movie...

Carry-on...

pdq67

Like I said before, love your stories Paul! I have stuff like that happen to me too, see a movie, hear a song, and it brings you back to an earlier day.......

Jody

Jody,

It's just errie man, just errie!!

Makes me think about what mighta been with a classmate that to this day is a best friend. It's as though I can bare my soul to her but of course, I never have..

Last time I saw her, I hugged her just before I left after everybody left the old home town Homecoming for the evening and told her as I kissed her cheek, "you know I've always loved you" and she said "yes I know"..

Funny thing, we are both happily married and don't see each other but like once in a blue moon..

I guess that dance will always bring back memories of what might have been...

pdq67

Yeah, it's funny how a song or a movie can trigger a memory like that. Where would I be if I had done this or that differently.

By the way, I was a car nut in high school too, but I never even attended a single dance, so at least you got there!

Jody

My family moved over from Champaign/Urbana in central Illinois back in '59 when I was 12 years old to Altlanta, Mo that was listed as having 458 people in it!! You talk about culture shock for a young, punk city kid!!!

Anyway, the little town had what was known as a Firestation/Community Center in it that held "Teen-Town" dances and get togethers for the teenage kids several times in the summer months to give the out of school youngsters something to look forward to.. I'm not too sure the dance part of the get-together wasn't called a "sock-hop" but don't really remember if it was or not???

When I turned 13, it was quite a deal to finally be old enough to tag along with my older sister to it!!

As I got older and still kept going to it every so often, I remember now looking back that the girls sat on one side of the room and the boys sat and stood on the other side!! A lot of milling around, but not much dancing as I recall...

Seems that the function was mainly for some of the popular girls mothers that chaperoned it moreso then us kids, but whatever...

I never did work up the courage to ask my classmate for a dance but I do remember staring across the room at her meeting her eyes..

Anyway, as time went on and more of the kids in my class and the following ones started driving, the allure of "Teen Town" kinda fell by the wayside...

Last time I was in town, the old Firestation/Community building is still there but the long tied together building that contained the restaurant, pool-hall and feed store has fallen in!! And a couple more of the old buildings like the Barber Shop and Drug Store are down or almost down now too!! As is the big grain elevator that I worked at in the summer grinding hog feed for 10 hour days/6 days a week until I went back to school in the fall for a couple of years..

Sad state of affairs what's happening to small town, rural America today to me....

pdq67

$3.00 psychological term for it is called the "Ethos Doctrine" or the "Doctrine of Ethos".

Sorry, had a moment there. Forgive me. ;)

ummgawa,

You 100 percent totally lost me???

You also said, "Sorry, had a moment there. Forgive me.",

so please continue b/c I'm always open ta finding out what makes us tick...

Maybe it's just some sort of midlife deal or something like that but I've went through a bunch of that sh-t early on and like almost ten years ago too...

I guess I'm just "musing and rambling" as an old man watching life kinda "keep on trucking" right along"..

pdq67

pdq67: The same thing just happened to me with an old girlfriend. We both have had diffrent lives over the last 30 years. But when we see each other one in a blue moon it's the same as 30 years ago. I had to fight the urge at that moment and now 2 weeks later things are back to normal. :rolleyes: That's why I bought my '69. It takes me back to good times. No mid-life crisis (that would have to have been 15 years ago to be mid-life). Just good memories. Pdq, you are not "an old man". You are just experienced!

Gary

Thanks Gary for the encouraging words on aging!!

That's just the way I feel sometimes but not all that lustful, but rather feel "agape" toward her.

She's one of my few REAL buddies that happens to be about the only girl in the small group of ones that I grew up with that I kinda wished things would have been different with way back when...

And it's funny b/c her Mom thinks the world of old wild-a--ed me as a kid to this day b/c earlier that day, both her parents were still there and her Mom jut about fell over when she saw me after all these years..

Her Dad was one of the older guy's at the Bulldozer/Blacksmith Shop that told me to get rid of my noisy glasspacks b/c the local Trooper was out for me too...

I was in bed and it hit me what ummgawa meant by his comment that I hadn't heard about!!

Yes, ummgawa, the same thing hits me whenever I'm tooling along and hear one of the old '62 to say '66 Golden Oldie songs like when I was driving my '57 in H/S or later my '67 right after I got it.. It's a rush the way the old memories come flooding back of days gone by..

I probably won't see my classmate until our next Class Reunion if then so will just have to remember a couple of songs to remind me of her. "Beachboys", "Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons" and "The Everly Brothers" songs nail the memories really hard...

pdq67

pdq67, I usually don't like going down paths that deviate from Camaro's WAY to far. If you would like , go to your search engine, "Yahoo, Google", etc. and type in "The Doctrine of Ethos" and it will give you way more info than I could give you in this forum. You'll find it very interesting. Great reading.

PDQ67 & others,

It's funny that this subject has come up because I am in the middle of an ugly situation because of this sort of thing right now.

I can't discuss the details, but let's just say that if you or your wife/significant other is trying to re-live the past, it may very well destroy your present relationships!!!!

My marriage of 16 years is on the brink of failure right now because of this very situation!!!

I understand that many of us still have feelings for other people from our past. But if you value your current relationships, you must let the old relationship go!!!

I'm not trying to tell anyone here how to live thier life, but I can tell you from present experience, that people's lives and families can get destroyed from this sort of thing!!!!

:( :( :(


- Mark P.

[ 05-24-2004, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Granny's 69 ]

Granny,

Sorry for your predicament and hope it turns out the way you want it to and all are happy in the end..

Like I said, I'm just thinking about my youth and "shoulda, coulda, woulda" sorta stuff is all.

I guess I need to listen to other years songs on the car radio like, say early '80's???

Heck, NO!! That was when I was divorced....And it would really stir up memories of the one I let go..

But I did buy my old car back when I was divorced.....

I got into a C&W phase about that time b/c of my Buddy, Doc, and the song, "Picking Up Strangers" really rings a bell thinking of the old two-step dance and the dance partner at the time...

pdq67

Geez fellas....I'm starting to get a frog in my throat over here. :(

I guess the song for me that brings back fond memories would be Peter Gabriel's 'Solsbury Hill'. It's a song about hope and new beginnings. It was playing on the radio a few weeks after my girlfriend broke up with me. I was still in High School then (15 years ago) and was driving home from a friends house thinking about her when it came on the radio. I listened to the lyrics of the song and thought, 'Hell yeah man, things aren't so bad. Time to get busy living and stop moping around'.

To this day Peter Gabriel is my favorite artist.

Granny: If you see my post I said that I had to fight the urge . When I was back in town I really thought about it. I have too many people doing the wrong thing would hurt and so does she. I really think it is best as a memory. :( But this is really cool talking about it! ;)

I talked to my neighbor about this thread and told him I thought maybe I was getting too personal.

AND you know what he said b/c he was raised up in a small town like me but some younger, he said it's good to talk about this stuff b/c hopefully it will give some insight into "woulda, shoulda, coulda" and how small towns are being lost so that now most of the younger people that don't have a clue about life in a small town and that have no idea how good life used to be in them..

It's not just my old much loved and respected female classmate here but rather a way of life that I look back on and miss and b/c I know it is gone forever except in the far corners of my memory now..

I see my buddy that's about two years older then I am that lives in St. Louis with his family every so often and we remember us all staying out late on a straw stack one saturday night with about a 12 pack between 7 or 8 of us and coming into town the next morning and picking up on all the old ladies gossip about how WILD party we had... B/S!! There just wasn't anything better to do..

When my buddy and I get together nowadays, we ramble on about this stuff for hours and both see it about the same way now..

Funny thing is that my Buddy feels just about the same about the girl I'm taking about so I know it isn't just me that experiences this stuff when triggered by the sound of an old song!!!

I know I can't live in the past OR really wouldn't want to relive the experiences of the past BUT I can sure treasure my memories of it....

pdq67

PS., my Buddy in St. Louis and I worked in the old long gone Grain Elevator's hog feed grinding room as kids and he's the one that talked me into going to Engine School at MU, Delta Chi Frat. house and all. My roomy there was a RICH KID and I learned a lot from him b/c I had never been around anybody of his station in life until then.. (AND yes, the D-X Frat. House back then reminds me soo much of the movie, "Animal House", that it's scary!!!)....

Even though it only lasted a short time until I dropped out and the next spring started on the RR. Then, later after getting married, I had matured enough to handle school again and so went back...

Thanks for the support PDQ67, I understand where you're coming from about past special friends and small town life because the high school I graduated from was in a small town.

Gary L., glad to hear you did the right thing.

The only reason I said what I did about old relationships is because those sort of things have potential to do damage or cause problems in one's current relationships. I'm writing this from the perspective of a person who has been on both ends of the situation at different times in life, if you understand what I mean...

Again, I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do....I just felt compelled to give a friendly warning/advice/fwiw,etc. to those who may find themselves in a similar situation.


- Mark P.

[ 05-25-2004, 06:52 AM: Message edited by: Granny's 69 ]

I hear you!!

Please read some more of my ramblings in the "Do you remember when" thread here..

Lets keep it coming guy's b/c I'm having a blast talking about this stuff and I hope others enjoy it too..

I also hope that the younger ones among us read some of this stuff and learn a thing or two, like do what we "old-heads" say, and NOT what we've done in the past!!

But each generation has to learn life their own way..

pdq67