Stop The World, I Want To Get Off!

Over the past several months, I have been busy researching my families history and delving into the memories, the myths and the unmistakable tall tales that make my families past so interesting. As I rummage around through the proverbial dusty cobweb filled attic, that holds memories of bygone eras, I began remembering some of my own past adventures and have noticed that I have a real longing in my heart for the times that have subtlety slipped away.

In these times of high speed communications, fast paced living and the ever consuming need for instant gratification, I wax nostalgic for a time that was much more simple and one that moved at a much slower pace. A time when children were allowed to play outside with the neighborhood kids without fear of a sexual predator, with less than honorable intentions, having access to their innocence. A time when you were not assaulted with raw footage on the television of the latest plane crash or high speed car chase. A time when a ten dollar bill was sufficient to fill your tank with gas or pay for a date to a first run movie with you sweetheart.

Although I know that those times were filled with their own share of problems and worries, it just seems to me that the simpler life we lived made the social ills of the time a little less hard to swallow. We have grown accustomed to knowing what is going on in the Middle East Wars with just a brief satellite lag time. We have found that we can read our friends latest thoughts in almost real time on Twitter or see our friends & families photographs in record breaking time just by viewing their MySpace page. We can buy the latest, can't live without it now widget just by pressing the buy now button on e-bay and have it at our front door in less than a week thanks to UPS & Fed Ex.

I must plead that I am guilty of freely partaking in the new technology, but at what cost? Has all this new technology really made me a better person? Or has it been a cocoon that gives me the option to avoid the world outside by turning to the virtual world inside? Has it really helped my personal relationship skills or has it merely made me a better typist?

As I have been digging up skeletons I have had some great memories of places and things that are no longer around. Like pulling into the subway station and hearing the chime as you walked up the ramp into Lenard's department Store downtown. Or seeing the Lisa Marie parked next to the fence at Meachum Airport every time Elvis came to town. Swimming under the cross bars of the dock at the Barbrook Swimming Pool in Haltom City. Eating pancakes at Sambo's Pancake House while reading the story of how butter was actually invented, on their menu.

Or the simple pleasures of just being a kid, like walking barefoot in the summer and letting your toes squish into the tar on the road as it was warmed by the hot summer sun. Chasing fire flies and collecting them in mayonnaise jars in the warm evening air. Running wild in Little Fossil Creek fighting Indians and pirates almost every day during the long days of summer. Creating mischief like stealing empty milk jugs from back porches to have coke and candy money for the day or smoking grapevine until you were sick at your stomach.

This was all in a time that was before the reality of life began to hit me as an adult and I'm sure that my parents did not see the world in the same rosy shades that I did but it does seem to me that times were much simpler then. I wish that my boys could have experienced life to the extent that I did when I was much younger, but I'm sure that they will look back on their childhood as the much simpler times and wish that they could real in the years that have slipped away from them too. I guess it all has to do with your prospective of life, but I believe that the good old days are just that and have slipped away down that long dark well of time only to be relived in our memories.

If you are interested in finding some local history, may I suggest that you visit the Fort Worth Architecture Forum at http://www.fortwortharchitecture.com/, they have a ton of old memories in the Local History forum and links to old pictures of the area. It is a real fun place for history buffs to play, but that's just my 2 pennies.
~marty