Going Down Memory Lane

Oh since around 2020, we haven't watched much TV at all.  I can't tell you the last time I sat down and watched the news, or a sit-com, or any other television program.  I just don't like the content.  They lost me.  It seems like every show is editorializing, every commercial is trying to push some type of agenda.  Even sports programs have become unwatchable with all the virtue signaling.  I don't know.  Maybe it's just me?  Anyway, I've found more productive things to do with my time, and haven't even missed it.

Perhaps, and this may be wishful thinking, many people are longing for 'normal' TV where the idea is to entertain without trying to push the limits of societal norms and indoctrinate viewers.  Why do I say that?  Well, I tip my hat to Chevrolet.  I was made aware of Chevrolet's "Going Down Memory Lane" Christmas Commercial 2025, and I want to share it with you:

Wow!  That really got me.  A family takes a holiday road trip in their old Suburban and remember their past experiences.  Things aren't always a perfect or care-free or happy as we remember, but times are good and filled with laughter amidst tears and joy intermixed with sorrow.  Even when things seem bad, at least we've got each other - togetherness, a family that leans on one another and carries each other through difficult times, and ages gracefully together.  When we do that, we arrive at our destination.

Watching this commercial made my eyes get a little... damp.  It especially hit home where it flashed to the back seat of the Suburban as the children grew and then there's only an empty seat.  And the dogs.  Dogs named Willie and Waylon, no less!  Whew!  Anyway, I don't know if this advertisement will sell any vehicles, but it sold me.  It reminded me that wholesome, family-oriented commercials can still be made.  Ones that you don't mute or go to the bathroom when they come on.  Well done, Chevrolet!  Keep 'em comin'!!!

The Good Old Days

NOTE: I will be bringing regular updates on Benjamin's continued progress along with specific things to pray for as needs change and as we get more news.  For now, he continues to work hard and make improvements each and every day.  Praise God!  We are ever so thankful to our merciful Lord.  

 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.  1 Thessalonians 5:18

I'm a hopeless nostalgic.  I was born in 1966 and grew up in the 70's and 80's.  Those felt like the best days of my life.  To me, it seemed like the best of times, although the 50's look great, too.  I guess it's all perspective.  I almost feel guilty for having the childhood I had.  My mind is littered with memories of good experiences, simplicity and happiness.  That's not to say that things were perfect.  They weren't - we live in a fallen world.  But the memories I have of the past evoke a sense of longing for better times in the present.  

I read a quote last week that in the Greek, the word nostalgia literally means "the pain from an old wound."  What an odd, but perfect way to put it!  Memories of the past bring back times we call the 'good old days' that create an aching in your soul, an intense longing to go back to a certain place and time in your past that no longer exists.  It is a weird, indescribable emotion.  It is sadness and happiness mashed up all together in a rich gumbo of emotion.  Does that make any sense at all?

I sometimes view a website that has an on-going thread called "Pictures from Days Gone By" in which people post old photos.  For a nostalgic, looking at those photos is akin to someone suffering with diabetes eating an entire box of Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies.  Here is one I saw the other day:

Note the attire, the work ethic, the joy on the kids' faces, the family togetherness.  I don't know the people and the time of the photo is a little before my time according to the farm equipment, but the subject matter of the photo hooked me like a channel cat.  The harvest meal.  Harvest time was a busy time.  It was hot.  Equipment would break down.  Rain would cause delays.  There was a skinny window of time you had to get the crop out of the field and so you worked and you worked hard.  The entire family was involved.  But you still had to eat.

Most of the time, we brought our lunches packed in igloo coolers that we would eat on the tractor, while we worked and listened to Ronnie Milsap on the radio.  The main course would be Olive Loaf lunchmeat sandwiches on Evangeline Maid white bread with mustard.  I haven't eaten an olive loaf sandwich in years, but thinking about it just now gave me a hankering.  There would also be a Dr. Pepper or a Shasta flavored soda in the cooler, a Little Debbie cake of some sort, a small bag of chips, a dill pickle, and some sunflower seeds.  Mom would make sure there was a banana or some grapes in the lunch box, of course.

Those lunches were great, but there were special farm lunches - the harvest lunch I anticipated.  At about noon, we would see a car turn down the dirt field road accompanied by billowing clouds of dust following behind it.  As the car got closer, we knew this was gonna be good.  My mom with my little sister in tow, or my grandpa or grandma would emerge with bags of food.  The combines kept harvesting, but those on the carts or the rice truck shut it all down!  

There was a burger joint in Oberlin called the Frostee.  They made great cheeseburgers, french fries and coke floats.  It was a red letter day when that was in the bag.  We always had homemade oatmeal cookies with raisins, too.  There were a couple fried chicken places in town that made great fried chicken with a thick seasoned batter.  We were happy with anything, though.  There was a little country grocery store called "Buddy's" right off Cottongin Road from which we purchased a multitude of honey buns and Dr. Peppers.  Dad had a charge account there and would settle up at the end of each month. 

We would eat our meal in the shade underneath an old tree or beneath the bed of the rice truck.  After eating we'd lie back in the grass all fat and happy and talk while my grandpa sharpened his pocketknife.  The soft scraping of the Case pocketknife against the brick lubricated with spit created a rhythmic sound that would lull you to sleep.  On cooler days, we'd drop the tailgate and eat right there with our legs swinging underneath.  Life seemed slower, unhurried, simple and innocent.  I'm sure there were worries, but I was unaware of them.  Here is another photo from that thread.  I don't know the people, but the scene is oh so familiar!

What in the world happened?  I don't know.  Why am I waxing nostalgic about something as foolish as an olive loaf sandwich forty-something odd years later?  Why do photos of people I don't even know pull a metaphorical scab off and create a "pain from an old wound?"  Those are questions better answered by deeper thinkers than someone such as I.  You probably don't have the same affinity for things or times that I described, but something tells me that you have similar memories and longings, no?

We certainly can't go back to those times.  They are gone.  We don't want to conform to a world whose values have seemingly left us behind.  I certainly don't want to adopt the values of a world that seems so at odds with mine or a world that's moving way too fast for this guy.  Finally, we feel powerless to change things around us that have made the world so complex, fast, impersonal and unforgiving.  In a small way, however, we can affect change in small ways on a local setting with those in your sphere of influence- making conversation with that soul you come into contact with.  Sharing a smile and a laugh with someone who is having a bad day.  You might even share an olive loaf sandwich with someone! 

So, this hopeless nostalgic will sign off tonight.  But one more thing.  I learned a new word last week.  It's called "postalgia."  Postalgia refers to a longing for a heavenly future, a feeling that when tomorrow comes, we want it to be like the good old days in the past that we spend our quiet moments pining for.  I think the Apostle Paul puts it best - this old world is fallen and should not be where our hopes lie.  No, our citizenship is in heaven.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:13-14

I Learned a New Word Today...

I recently completed a three week training course for my new job.  It was intense, but very informative.  One of the things that I really enjoy about my new employer is their commitment to Family and Traditional Values.  At the end of the coursework for one of the days, they attached a pdf document entitled, "Good Habit Inventory."  It stated, "We really are creatures of habit.  If 80% of our productivity comes from habit, it is imperative that we monitor and change our non-productive habits."  It then proceeded to list out recommended habits - about half were work-related, but half were personal in nature.  I won't elaborate on each item as there were 29 of them.  I will, however, list a few:

• Read for pleasure two hours per week
• Read paper after the kids are in bed
• Congratulate one person each day
• Maximum of 3 cuss words per day
• Read the Bible daily
• Don't eat snacks after supper
• Do 25 sit-ups each day
• Spend 15 minutes each day in quiet time
• Hear what family members have to say
• Spend at least 20 minutes with each child each day
• Learn one new word three days each week

First observation is this: I've never worked for a company that was genuinely interested in helping their employees deepen the quality of their family time, personal time and their spiritual life.  It impressed my socks off.  In a dog-eat-dog world of modernity, where we all feel like we are cogs in a corporate wheel or 'just a number,' or merely a tool to be used to get the job done, it is refreshing to know that there is a company that is not afraid to recommend that their employees 'Read the Bible everyday' or spend time with their children!

So, along those same lines, I learned a new word today.  I like vocabulary.  I had never heard of this word before: Hiraeth.

That is my new favorite word!  Hiraeth.  If you've read the blog for any period of time, you know that I am a hopeless nostalgic.  Some of my ramblings about memories of the past read like Lamentations!  

Before I begin new ruminations about this topic, I want to preface it with the fact that I know and I'm fully aware that things in the past were not perfect.  The "good old days," in many respects, were not the good old days for everyone.  Many people were in poverty, the life expectancy wasn't what it is now, people worked HARD, and so on and so forth.  However, there are aspects of those days that I feel great hiraeth for.  The emotion, the longing for what has been lost is palpable as I look at old photos and black and white films that contain people that had next to nothing but had joy.  Their smiles and innocence and optimism despite truly hard times is inspiring.

Our nation was together.  Families stayed together.  People had dignity.  People worked hard.  They were proud of their country.  They worked with their hands.  They attended church together and prayed together.  The economy was such that the head of the household could earn a living to adequately support his family, and the wife, if she wanted to, could stay home and raise the kids.  What has happened?  

We very rarely eat out.  We grow most of our own food.  Wednesday night after church we joined some church members at Wendy's to be social.  Tricia had a salad and water.  I had a spicy chicken sandwich and a small drink.  The total was $18.95!  We had a GREAT visit with our brothers and sisters in Christ, but I left hungry and unsatisfied by the meal.  I want to be very honest with you when I say that this modern world has left me hungry and unsatisfied.  I want to retreat very far away from modernity.

There are help wanted signs at every place of business, but no one wants to work.  The churches are largely vacant.  People's heads are glued to their phones.  Manners are non-existent.  The people are entertained with Bread & Circuses while "Rome" burns.  History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.  The filth and pollution that fill the airways, television and Internet promotes culture that is bankrupt with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

What happened?  We have been robbed.  The global elites, politicians bought and paid for have sacrificed the American people, the moral rot and decay we willingly consume have corrupted our land.  I cannot blame it on outside forces, though.  We, like the children in The Pied Piper of Hamelin, have been lured away, never to be seen again, or at least, not resembling the people we once were.

Can we go back?  Is it too late?  Is there hope?  I have good news.  There is always hope in the LORD.  Things may get better for a season, but the Bible tells us that things will get worse.  We know how the story ends.  Judgment is coming!  There is a curse on the land since the fall of Adam.  The Bible tells us that creation groans for the curse to be broken.  Jesus died on the cross to break the curse of sin and death.  Trust in Him.  Read His Word.  Walk with Him.  Grow in Him.  It is time to turn to the "author and perfecter of our faith."

In speaking of our new vocabulary word of the day: HIRAETH, a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, I want to share some good news with you.  You CAN go to that home.  C.S. Lewis once said,

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

That other world is found by placing your faith in Jesus Christ.  

Grandpa, Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ol Days

On Sunday I attended funeral services at our church for a gentleman that I greatly respected.  While sitting in the fellowship hall after the service, I had an interesting conversation with the preacher who performed the service.  He asked me if we were still milking cows and if we still had chickens and goats.

He told me that it reminded him of his childhood.  He had a smile on his face as he began reminiscing.  Here's what he told me in his words (not mine):

"I remember when I was young and having to wake up early in the morning.  My brother and I would walk to the barn and each hand milk a cow before going to school.  We had to milk them again in the afternoon after school.  My Daddy taught us to work hard.  We had a large garden (a field, really) that we would grow our own food.  Daddy taught us how to hook up a plow to a mule and plow the garden." 

"We raised hogs and always had two of them.  Daddy told us that hogs are greedy and if you had two of them, they would compete for the food with the other and they would grow faster.  I remember Daddy would watch for when the first cold front was coming.  The night before, we'd stack firewood underneath a big cast iron pot and fill it with water.  The next morning, we'd wake up before daylight and start the fire.  We'd stand around the fire until it was daylight and Daddy would shoot the hogs and drag them to the table.  The hogs would be scalded and gutted."

"I can still remember Momma walking down the road from the house with a dress on.  Against her hip, she was carrying a big white porcelain bowl with a red ring around it.  She wanted the first pork roast.  Daddy would cut it off and put it in her bowl and Momma would walk back to the house.  We had pork roast for supper that night and it was so good!"

"One of the last things Daddy told us before he died was, "I worked you boys so hard.  I'm so sorry.  I just wanted you to know how to do things.  There may be a day coming where the most important thing you can do is know how to put food on the table for your family.  I've given you some land, boys.  Don't ever sell your land.  With 20 acres you have enough land to take care of you and your family.""

It's me again.  I could have sat there all evening listening.  The good old days.  Work was hard, but the family ties were strong and the bonds of love were deep.  Memories were cherished, work ethic instilled.  Even though the gentleman telling me the stories wasn't near old enough to be my grandpa.  It reminded me of the simple message in The Judd's song, "Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days."  Click the arrow below to listen.  I've also posted the lyrics below:

Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days

Sometimes it feels like this worlds gone crazy

Grandpa, take me back to yesterday

When the line between right and wrong

Didn't seem so hazy

Did lovers really fall in love to stay

And stand beside each other, come what may

Was a promise really something people kept

Not just something they would say

Did families really bow their heads to pray

Did daddies really never go away

Oh, grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days

Grandpa, everything is changing fast

We call it progress, but I just don't know

And grandpa, Let's wander back into the past

And paint me the picture of long ago

(Repeat)

Did lovers really fall in love to stay

And stand beside each other come what may

Was a promise really something people kept

Not just something they would say and then forget

Did families really bow their heads to pray

Did daddies really never go away

Oh, grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days

Oh, grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days

A nice, but melancholy song, lamenting modern times when things seem to have gone off the rails.  I'm with you, Naomi and Wynonna.  We call it progress, but I just don't know...

The Good Old Days

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"I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them" - Andy Bernard from The Office

We don't watch a whole lot of television at our house.  We don't have cable and I'm not interested in most of the stuff on network TV.  I must admit, however, that we have Netflix and binge watch certain programs on there.  We've recently watched all 9 seasons of "The Office."  The Office was a quirky show about employees at a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  The writers were so skilled and the show was light-hearted and the characters kept us laughing out loud frequently - more so than any other show.

Last night we watched the show's finale and it was an emotional show.  The characters were all going their separate ways and Andy Bernard said the quote, "I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them."  To me, that was probably the best quote of the entire show.  That's saying a lot, because the show was filled with noteworthy and funny quotes.

Isn't that quote accurate, though?  I'm a very nostalgic person - always remembering the past, reminiscing about "the good old days."  I was just looking through some old photos tonight, like the one below of our family taken in January 2009.  My, how things have changed in only ten years.

I look back at that photo and think, "Those were the good old days."  The kids were young, all living at home.  We were younger.  I looked at more photos.

Things seemed so carefree and happy.

The good old days...

But then as I think of it, even with all the smiles and happiness, 10 years ago would we have said it was the good old days?  I don't think so.  We were going through things that we wouldn't have considered "good old days."  The good old days are elusive.

As I think on it, I think Andy Bernard was right about the good old days.  Relish each moment.  Cherish each day.  Live life to the fullest for the good old days are right now.

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.
 

I Watched it All on the Radio

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So here is a daily dose of nostalgia in both color (above) and black & white (below), even though I'm too young (49 years old) to remember it.  Families would gather around the big "stand-up" radios in their dens and listen to ball games, Amos 'n Andy, and (who can ever forget) the Orson Welles' "The War of the Worlds" radio drama broadcast, in which he convinced many Americans that an actual invasion from Mars was taking place!  People sat around radios like this and used their imaginations to fill in the blanks that Televisions, computers, and cell phones now do.

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We don't have cable and sometimes when my team plays on a cable channel that I cannot catch, it is fun to listen to an LSU football game on the radio.  You can tune in to Jim Hawthorne and Doug Moreau calling the game on WWL Radio out of New Orleans. Jim will say, "The Tigers come out to the field wearing gold pants, white shirts, and purple numbers.  Harris is under center, and they are in an I-formation with Dupre split wide to the right."  And I'm right there.  My imagination fills in the sights, sounds, smells and atmosphere as I wait for the play to unfold.

When my great grandmother passed away in 1987 I was given her old radio.  I have a photo of it below.  She was born in 1901 and I'm sure she spent much time in front of this old radio "passing the time," listening to a favorite program.

I refinished the cabinet around 1990 and purchased a piece of upholstery to cover the speaker portion at the bottom of the cabinet.  I think it is a nice looking radio, with a back-lit dial and three knobs on the front.  I just wished it still worked.

If you turn around the back, you can see the components that ran the radio, consisting of a bunch of vacuum tubes, capacitors, resistors and electronics encased in cylinders and compartments.  This was probably state-of-the art at the time it was made, but now, compared with electronics today, it seems primitive.

This radio is a Stewart-Warner model R-104-A and from what I can learn it was produced around 1931.  I did a Google search on the manufacturer and found This Article that gave some very interesting facts.

First, Stewart-Warner was founded in 1905 and they made the speedometers in the Ford Model T. They also made the "Zerk" grease fitting (nipple attachment) that you fit your grease gun into to pump grease into bearings!  I always thought Zerk was an odd name, but it turns out it was named after Oscar Zerk, the inventor or person to whom the patent of the grease fitting was granted.  Oscar worked for the Alemite Co. which later changed its name to Stewart-Warner.

The main plant and headquarters of Stewart-Warner was located in Chicago.  In the photo above you can see "MADE IN U.S.A." proudly emblazoned on the serial plate. Well, that is no more.  In 1989 the new owner of Stewart-Warner moved all operations to Juarez, Mexico and shuttered the plant you see below that still employed 700 people at the time.  Sad that the employees that once worked in that bustling place lost their jobs and the once busy office is vacant, dormant, and fenced off with grass growing up in the pavement.

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I pulled one of the tubes out of the old radio receiver to get a closer look.  Pretty neat. The receiver has 'Superheterodyne' written on the side of it.  I had never heard of that word, but it refers to a method of designing wireless communications or broadcast equipment. 

I searched around and found a couple of websites in which this very radio (in working condition!) was selling for $299.  I would assume it would sell for a lot more than that.  Of course I'd never sell it.  It is a neat connection to an earlier, simpler time.  

There is a country and western singer named Lionel Cartwright who sang a song  in 1990 called "I watched it all on my radio" that is about those simpler times when radio was king.  Here are a few of the lyrics:

And right about midnight, some preacher came on

To tell me what's right, to tell me what's wrong

And there was a test at the sound of the beep

"It was only a test" the voice would repeat

And the National Anthem would sing me to sleep

I had a six-transistor when I was a kid

Under my pillow, I kept it hid

When the lights went out, and no one could see

Over the airwaves, the world came to me

And I had a seat on the very front row

And I watched it all on my radio

I watched it all on my radio

Did you ever "watch it all" on your radio?