The View Looking Back

Back in 1978 I was 12 years old.  At that time in my life, I don’t think I ever looked back.  I was either living in the present or had my eyes fixed on the future.  Worries were non-existent as there wasn’t much for a 12 year old boy to be concerned about.  As I recall, there wasn’t much planning to be done, nor frets or regrets about the past.  Truth is, at 12 years old, there’s not a lot of “past” to speak of.  There was a song during that time of my life by the rock group Boston that was real popular.  I liked it.  It was called “Don’t Look Back.”  The lyrics went something like this:

                                     

Don't look back

A new day is breakin'

It's been too long since I felt this way

I don't mind where I get taken

The road is callin'

Today is the day

Today is the day.  Living for today.  As I stated I didn’t look back (the way I do now) much – except…  Except when we all loaded up in our Oldsmobile Station Wagon with the back seat that faced backward.  Then, we only looked back!  There was no other option for the kids in the backseat unless we laid the seat down.

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In that position looking backward, me and my brother and sister were out of reach of our parents and would make goofy faces at other motorists and make that signal with our arms to get 18 wheeler drivers to blow their horns at us.  On long trips we always found something to do to keep us entertained.  Probably some of those things are why they no longer make cars with seats that face backwards.

We had a station wagon that looked sort of like this:

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It was the first diesel Oldsmobile Station wagon and all the bugs weren’t worked out of it.  The thing spent a lot of time in the shop.  We had plenty of problems with the car, as I recall, but we made many memories in it too, trekking across the country on family vacations.  The darn thing had a spoiler on the back of it, as if it was as speedy as an Indy car and was in danger of lifting off the roadway without the downward pressure of air from the spoiler!

As I get older, I do a lot more looking back now (call me nostalgic) than I did as a kid and I’ve found that the quote below is quite true.

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: You find the present tense and the past perfect! – Owens Lee Pomeroy

I forget whether the wood grains on our family Station Wagon was teak or mahogany!

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I am an unabashed nostalgic person and I do think a lot about the past.  I guess I find that life is a lot like riding in the rear-facing seats of the Oldsmobile Station wagon.  We’re passengers on this journey of life.  Our “Dad” is driving.  While we are moving forward, we’re also looking back at the road behind us, at where we’ve come from-relishing the past while still moving ahead.  I don’t think that is a bad thing at all.