Hootie and The Nostalgia....

 Wow... memories....


  I bought a cassette (yes you read that right) for my yellow Sony sports walkman (annnnd yes, you definitely read THAT one right) back when I was training in the Infantry, bought it at the Canex out in Wainright...would play the music and fall asleep. Inevitably the walkman would clatter to the floor in the night from my crazy thrashing around.  Never seemed to bother the other guys in my Barracks though, they were usually out like a light.
  I loooooved this album!  I had this, Pink Floyds the Division Bell (STILL awesome) and Van Halen lol... yeah... soldiering in style, right?
  This music brings me right back to a specific time and place, its almost eerie to sit back and listen to it now and let so many memories flood to the front of the mind.... easy to forget so many of them too but the music brings it all right back like a lost friend.
 Nostalgic to the extreme.  Before so many changes, so many mistakes, so many regrets.... back when life was so much simpler, and fool that I was, I didnt see how easy things were.... Just too busy waiting to grow up.

 Wish I could go back and tell that idiot kid about the world, about how things really are, and to make him ready for the freight train of life that was barreling down on him even so long ago.  I would tell him how it is out here in the real world, in full blown adulthood, and how hard it can get.  I would tell him about patience, and inner peace, and the blessing of music and writing and to nurture it more instead of letting it fall to the wayside as he foolishly did for so long.   I would shake him, hard, and tell him to smarten up and stop being so stubborn and proud and learn to apologize... learn to compromise and to try harder at making things right.  

  Ahhh... Soldier Ryan. So young and idealistic and naive.  Its almost painful to think about how I was back then...so stupid. 
Youth is surely wasted on the young.  

 Having said that, I feel that I have grown into someone decent enough to say hey, even with a retardation handicap, I still managed to make out ok.  The guitar is still my friend, and words can still engulf me in their whirlwind vortex, and I am a-ok with it. I have learned some patience, and how to compromise, and even a bit about letting go of stubborn pride. Not there yet, not where I really want to be, but hey, lifes all about the journey, not the destination.

 It all seems to come in chapters;not all are neat, some are sloppy and a few are just plain chaotic, but most will end tidily, and the story seems to travel along in generally the right direction... you know.. towards that happy ending..

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spin the globe and see where you land

      Funny the difference a season can make.  My last post at the end of Spring had me gearing up for an epic European backpacking trip.  Rome, Naples, Procida Island, Bolzano, and various other stops in Italy before swinging up to Poland to visit with a friend there after staying with a gracious and patient friend in Italy.  Wroclaw was special to see for the historical side of things but more importantly to me, it was the birthplace of my dear friend Margaret.  Slawek, her brother, and I would travel the streets of their youth that they had told me all about over the course of decades... it brought Maggie back a little bit, for a short while.  A special end to a pretty special trip.  Definitely had some bittersweet moments as well but the glory of the Roman ruins, the awe inspiring mountains of the Dolomites, to the excitement of hiking up a winding hillside through dense brush and tree cover to behold the ruins of old castles, meticu...
Read more

Blogwork is Homework is Good Work

 Hello, Gentle Reader,    This blog has always been my way of sharpening my writing chops, or shaking off the rust of my laziness and trying to find my 'voice', as it were, online.  I know, Gentle Reader, that you often do not give feedback, and thats ok.  This space isn't meant as an ego-reach and any and all feedback regarding my posts is appreciated, often more than you might guess, but thats not why I write here.     Most of my drive and reasoning is the simple act of it.  Writing is healthy for the soul and great practice more than anything else, the more practice you put in, the better at it you get... or at least that's what I keep incessantly telling myself, forever hopeful that I am in fact getting 'better' as a writer, whatever that actually means.  I suppose my ability to project my voice comes down to you, Gentle Reader.  I hope you hear me and I am able to project the visuals and a sense of where I am, figuratively as w...
Read more

Fuck this place, I’m out…

I grew up poor.  Really poor. To steal a line from Chris Rock, we grew up so poor we couldn’t afford the O R at the end of the word, we were just PO. hahaha. Still accurate. But my childhood poverty isn’t the point of this post. I mention it because growing up I had to watch all my friends going on family vacations to Disneyland and the Phillipines and Mexico and wherever their families were in the world while I roamed my asphalt jungle like a half wild animal in a cage.   I always vowed that I would see the world someday. It was a fervent childhood promise full of idealism and hope, as only a child can conjure.   In my heartbreak of being left behind and alone to fend for myself all summer, I knew, in my bones…I just KNEW… I’d go out there and see the world some day. Even as those bitter tears streamed down my little cheeks, the fire to see the world, the one I only ever read about in books, burned deep in my soul.  … … … Fast forward a few decades.  I’ve ...
Read more