Tag: nostalgia
Some things don't change
I have kept a memento album since sometime in the late 1990’s. Just a photo album with newspaper scraps, pictures of friends and loved ones, and letters/post cards from people that I’ve communicated with in the past. Not letters as in email print outs, but actual letters. You know, those that were hand written at one point in the distant past? Yeah, those things… Hard to believe we did stuff besides typing, isn’t it? Sentimentality is so over-rated…
But I went into this album today with the specific intention of taking out and tucking away a few pictures I’d taken close to ten years ago (within a year or two) and a handful of letters as well from that same time frame. I’ll just say that they were all of the same subject. That person has been chronicled here in vagueness and obtuseness.
But going through the letters — marred with the inconsistency of not knowing what I had originally sent (which had led to these response letters) as well as the letters themselves rambling in vagueness. I found one passage of one particular letter (written on loose leaf paper as they all were, and dated 8/06 and likely from 1998 ) that just left me smiling and nodding for all the wrong reasons:
Dear John —
Today is a day I shall always remember. I took a wonderful, if not so secret thing and brutally destroyed it. I’m disgusted. I have new understanding of several things Sorry so obtuse but I don’t wan to talk any more about it
Why do I take satisfaction in this? What kind of sick asshole am I to do such a thing? A ten+ year old letter, stated rather obtusely, about destroying something beautiful?
Answer: I hadn’t said it felt like someone died for nothing, people. This letter may be an echo of a person that I knew in the past, based on different events and different circumstances along with different consequences, but to me? It’s the only remorse that I will see in the present from that person.
We’ve all taken something beautiful and destroyed it – a keepsake, a plant, perhaps a relationship of the friendly or intimate variety — at one point or another in our lives. I know I’m guilty of this in the past with people and things, but I take some solace in knowing that at one point in time, there was expressed grief and remorse by certain people. Grief and remorse that I can’t quite see them express or have linger in their head or heart today over recent events.
"It's Your Store" – almost no more
The Shoppes at Boot Ranch started to be constructed around the time I moved into Palm Harbor 19 years ago. The first major tennent was a mid-west food chain named Jewel Osco… The plaza was still under construction and by the time it was finished, there would be a Target and a Eckerd Drug store as well.
By the time I was in middle school — I think seventh grade (circa 1992) — Jewel Osco was being sold to another supermarket chain that had a bigger presence in Florida: Idaho-based Albertsons.
AlbertsonsAnd so it went for 17 years. I’ve shopped at this location from time to time, I’ve worked at this location and made a bunch of friends (and lost a few along the way)… There have been highs and lows… But the standard that has been maintained is that Albertsons was around and I had a history there. I have nostalgia hit me often at this location.
But this morning I ventured to Albertsons to do some shopping and what I encountered was just plain sad. Of course, it’s already known that Publix bought Albertsons locations throughout Florida and the new location in Boot Ranch would and will serve Publix well and dandy compared to their antiquated store across the street in East Lake Woodlands…
But to see Albertsons on the way out was painful. 10-20 percent off signs were up on every aisle, the meat racks were bare, and the store was not receiving shipments from certain grocers or companies any more it seemed. I mean, how many supermarkets do you go into and find the Little Debbie snack rack completely empty?
Of course, other racks remained full because of poor decisions by whoever made them initially — why were George Foreman grilles on sale in a supermarket? Or Hummingbird feeders/food? Their boxes were worn down from sitting on racks for extended periods of time with no one actually purchasing the items. This was the case for a lot of things in this store and I would not be surprised if any of these items I am thinking of (mostly small appliances) had been on the shelves since I worked at the store 12 years ago.
Certain bulk racks had been taken down near the entrance and the store seemed void while filled. Yes, it was a Sunday morning at a supermarket but for one reason or another, this location never drew in the teeming masses that Publix draws in across the street and elsewhere in Palm Harbor.
I really wish I had brought my camera when I was at the store. I don’t know what Publix plans for the location. A renovation? Or just a retrofit? I really hope they don’t rebuild the building, but I could honestly see it happening with how aged and infrastructure is.
I ache with nostalgia, thinking of bagging groceries inside that store and hauling shopping carts in the parking lot back into the building from October 1995 until December 1996. There are good and bad memories that come to mind, along with current troubles in my head and heart that also have roots at that store. But in the end, I bow to the hand of commerce and progress. I hope I get to the store again before it closes and changes to Publix… But that remains to be seen if it shall happen.
The people and things….
I got nostalgic yesterday a bit not just because of where I was and who I was with, but also someoen I ended up talking to via email….
Eric Rosell, one of my best friends growing up – the kid aroudn the corner – got married in a small ceremony at a local church. It was the first time I had seen his parents in a few months, the first time I had seen his brother in a few years and the first time I had seen his sister in more years. It was amazing I was attending Eric’s wedding, surreal even. (sidenote – is it bad luck if a Catholic is married on teh day the Pope dies? I hope not)
I grew up playing or hanging out at Eric’s house. I was the one that was first notably enamoured with someone of the opposite sex… Or at least the first to make a big deal otu of love and romance and stuff like that. This, that and the other thing – I saw my childhood before me — even as it disappeared further.
The nostalgia didn’t end there as I heard from Danae – the girl who live ddownt eh block for a time who I was flipped out for. I had sent her an email wishing her a happy birthday — strange how sometimes you feel like it’s not yoru place to say soemthing like that and yet you have no problem with doing so with other people who are almost complete strangers. She got to breaking me the news her grandmother – who lives down the block – had passed away at Christmas (which I wasn’t aware of) and other things. I remembered being smitten with the saphire-eyed girl who lived at the corner… I thought of the memory of the past – and the awkwardness and malignance the relationship had in general.
But of all negatives in the past – they’ve been forgiven. If not forgotten by me.
Dated Material
Whoa.
Taking a casual aquaintence out for a date was something I haven’t done which seems sad and pathetic but when it’s someone off the internet – you must be careful. Tonight I had my first true experience with it and I am not regretting it in the least bit.
In fact, I’m trying my Freud to see what it means. It was conversation , it was hanging out, it was a link to the past and what could have — no SHOULD have – been if I had some nerve several years ago and did what I should have done and asked out a more than casual aquaintence because of my feelings for her.
It’s not that things clicked especially well — I was my usual self and I was just meeting this girl for the first time in reality. It was the nostalgia I had when I got to watching this girl and seeing her reactions and mannerisms and…
This isn’t the past. This isn’t who I was comparing this girl to. It was a totally seperate being with totally seperate plans for life and totally seperate goals. Someone that I am just getting to know. Not someone I knew. Someone I want to know more about – maybe need to know more about.
Anyway, she wants to hang out again sometimes soon — which is cool by me. Danny-boy wants to hang out when he is down here. Maybe a group outing would be a way to go about things? We’ll see.
Yes, this makes it easier for me to understand some people’s actions – but doesn’t forgive them one iota for their cowardice or Selfish at the same time. I imagine at one point you’re going to think “I guess he doesn’t want to talk to me…” That’s not quite the truth — you haven’t even tried to be a friend to me or make amends as a friend. That might work with the Erie lot (just put it off, it’ll go away) but it doesn’t work in the real world. Why should I talk to you if you’re going to act like you did nothing wrong in how you broke the news to me, or act in general like you don’t want to talk to me? Two negatives don’t make a positive.
