Monday, July 8, 2013

It Must Be A Mirage


I was chatting on the phone yesterday with one of my best childhood friends who left Wallace after college graduation and never came back. We can get on the phone and talk for hours about the "old day" , and how it was growing up Wallace.



During the conversation yesterday, I mentioned that I had seen some houses for sale in Wallace in on the Internet for unbelievably low prices. I also said in not so lucid moments that Candy and I had discussed moving back there because life was so simple there.



He was stunned for a minute, and then said," Yes, it is simple there because there is nothing there anymore." Hm, he could be right. There is not much there anymore. So, why do I still crave it once a year. Why do I think that I can get in the car, drive over there, and go downtown Wallace and return to those thrilling days of yesteryear?



I remember the first time that I tried that t Christmas time some year ago. I was coming home from Seattle to spend Christmas in Wallace with my aging parents. I had been flying them over to Seattle every year for the Christmas holidays, but this year hey asked if I could come "home" for Christmas. I was actually excited to do so



On the 24th of December, about 4 Pm, I drove uptown, somehow expecting to see the stores and merchants and other folks that I had known in my childhood. Yes, Wallace was still beautiful in the freshly fallen snow, but, wait, I did not see anyone that I knew, most of the stores were gone, and ,well, then it hit me. Of course it was gone. or is it? Are memories real? Or, are they just an escape from the present?



Or maybe, it is really only a mirage.

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me - Would we? Could we?

Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

So it's the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were

 

4 comments:

Go Figure said...

Cedar: Memories are real...not an escape from the present. Indeed new good memories are being made today, and every day, it just takes a few years for them to become fond memories. As far as Wallace-- EVERYONE from there wants to move back, and many have, but it, like everything, just as you and I both have changed, and will continue to do so. Life in Wallace is still 'simple' but it is a 'different simple'.

Cedar Street Kid said...

GF, When I first started writing this post, I was going to go metaphysical and talk about time and parallel existence. I got off track a bit. What I was really saying is that memories are not only real, the events are still going on in some plane.

Good pints about Wallace. Yes, life is simple there, but a little too simple for us, but the appeal of that is strong sometimes.

cdevsol said...

Hi Glenn, I have a brother inlaw who is buying some of those houses and they are pretty trashed. I figure he and his partners put in 100% of the cost in repairs. So just double the cost of anything you see for the real price.

In our youth we had a different outlook of life, all those french fries and listening to Roger Miller while bemoaning our non existent love lives.

My wife thinks it would be nice to move back some day but not me. I still remember the snow, the floods, lack of stores and advanced medical services. I'm too old and my health is not as good, so I'll pass.

Cedar Street Kid said...

Hi Charles. Good post. Ah yes, so you do remember those days in Sweets eating fries and drinking cokes Yes, we were crying in our cokes,(:) Roger Miller, wow, good times. Remember this one? " oh where oh where could my baby be? The Lord he took her ways from me." Man, we listened to that a lot that summer. You were a good friend, Charles.
Of course we can't go back. I live with an 02 hose 24/7 and rely on expert medical people to keep me going. We would go crazy there. I have lived in some great cities, a and my wife is from Baltimore.

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