Nostalgia Good & Bad

A  L  O  H  A !

" We could never

 have loved the earth

 so well 

if we had had

 no childhood

 in it. "

George Eliot 

" If you're yearning 

for the good old days,

 just turn off

 the air conditioning. "

Griff Niblack

" Nostalgia is a file

 that removes the

 rough edges 

from the good old days. "

Doug Larson 

"It's never too late 

to be 

who you might

 have been."

George Eliot

  =^..^=  

Nostalgia

is a visit to

hallways where

you lived,

walked,

 and breathed

a long time ago.

So much comes to mind.

Perspectives emerge,

forgotten joys

live once more

for the moment.

But 

you cannot 

live there.

We must emerge

as from cinema

into the bright lights

of Now.

Don't remain

in the shadows,

peering out

with suspicion

and derision

at those going about

their lives today.

We call such 

shadow dwellers

"Old People."

Don't BE one!

Thanks for YOUR visit, Friend

Please leave a comment

                                 warmly, cloudia

When I Was 21

Back in Philly . . . . When I was 21. . . . The World sounded like this. . . or was it just every radio
 in every car. . .  from every window?



> < } } (°>
' Take Peace & Smiles - Leave Your Comment '
Thanks for visiting!
                                    Warmly, cloudia

Body Follows Mind & Heart

A   L   O   H   A  !

See the round turret?

(It's behind the tree)

That was my apartment,

up there at the top,

on this leafy street

in West Philadelphia.

This was my view

from that turret of windows.

The city of my birth,

of my parents` also.

Waikiki Skies Portraying my Imagination

Every afternoon,

after I cleaned all the jobs,

and took all the classes,

I used to sit in that circular space

taking in the cloud

panorama.

Closing my eyes one day

I thought:

'The sun on my eyelids

n o w

is the same sun

warming up eyelids

in Waikiki.

Soon,

I believed

that I WAS

in Waikiki.

In fact I enjoyed my

daily Hawaii vacation

and soon looked forward

to it all day.

They say that

VISUALIZATION

is a magical thing.

If you can SEE,

TASTE, SMELL,

BELIEVE:

Then it is

TRUE.

Athletes do it

and win.

I used visualization

and ended up

with THIS view:

Looks more like Hawaii,

 than Haverford Avenue to me!

But sometimes I close my eyes

and imagine myself walking

in Wild West Philly,

before it was

gentrified.

Downtown,

the institutions of 

culture prestige & power

were far away

-over the 

Schuylkill River-

How could I

get over?

In my imagination,

the Philadelphia Museum of Art

still shimmers afar,

beyond the rail yards,

rose-gold,

like Athens on her Hill.

 

See the classical palace of culture?

Philadelphia Museum of Art

beyond the arch bridge.

It's really the little things,

little moments,

that stick

to our souls:

How wonderful

that YOU

& I

are sharing THIS

moment!

Thank YOU

' Take away Peace - Leave a Comment '

                   Warmly, cloudia

Vintage Car Memories

A  L  O   H   A  !

The other day, 

my normal Waikiki routine

 turned into

British Motoring

 Festival Day!

This beauty at the Post Office 

screamed

"LOTUS!"

[ and whispered:

'Get IN' ]

It was stirring a memory. . . 

laying practically on my back

like watching TV in bed. . . .

oh yes!

Dad's yellow Jaguar-

Photo courtesy Harmon Motors

Seems to me, I only rode in it once.
[I was on my own by then.]

But that ride was memorable.

One thing I DO remember:

It was finicky about starting

in the rain.

A Ford Transit

 sat nearby

Nice size

 for a business on an

 island.

the Transit is Not TOO big, like some

vehicles I could mention. . .

 HEY! A few blocks away:

Another British motoring icon!

But I couldn't get that small van 

out of my mind;

It was evoking

 something,

something from childhood.

But what?

GOT IT !

Going to work for the day

with Dad in his

"English Ford."

This was before 'compact cars'

when the Volkswagen 

was still new

-and strange-

to those accustomed to 

BIG American Cars !

Funny

how EVERYTHING

can bring you back around

to something you

keep remembering

anyway.


Often when driving
I remember one of the things
he said near the end:

"I just wish I could 
drive my car."

Remembering that
brings joy
back to driving,
and dissolves
traffic blues.

Miss ya Dad

& Thanks to YOU, my friend
for looking in

                              Warmly, cloudia

  >< } } ( ° >

Music

A  L  O  H  A  !

Kindly Klick on the Kontent

" If there is anything 

that we wish to change in the child, 

we should first examine it

 and see whether it is not something 

 that could better be changed 

in ourselves.  "

Carl Jung

 

" Think first 

about the foundations of humility. 

The higher 

your structure is to be,

 the deeper must be its

 foundation.  "

Saint Augustine

" Fugitive slaves were rare then,

 and as a fugitive slave lecturer,

 I had the advantage

 of being the first one out.  "

                                       Frederick Douglass

“When I hear music,

 I fear no danger. 

I am invulnerable. 

I see no foe.

 I am related to the earliest times,

 and to the latest.”

 

 Henry David Thoreau 

 

               ><}}(°>

< ° ) } } > < 

 

 

 

 

Music & Nostalgia

are sisters.

Music helps to make

and to mark

a certain moment

in Our Time.

Everyone

can love the Beatles

but only a lucky few

get to hear them

as a fresh new sound

at just the right

age !

Watching the old kinescope

even the Stones

seem sedate.

That "Damned Jungle Music"

was actually quite

musical.

Hard to remember,

to realize,

just how New

it all 

once sounded. 

Do YOU remember?

< ° ) } } > <

Thank YOU

for visiting.

                           Warmly, cloudia

We're All From Some Place

A L O H A !

click on these shots!

 My Waikiki home is full of beauty. . .

" It's always good to remember

where you come from

 and celebrate it.

 To remember where you come from

 is part of where you're going. "

 Anthony Burgess

" I think what I've learned

out of this lifetime

 is you should be proud

of where you come from. "

 Kid Rock

Part of me is happiest in the industrial & "less pretty"

parts of Honolulu.  I believe I know why. . . 

 

“ Home is a place

you grow up wanting to leave,

and grow old 

wanting to get back to. ”

 

       John Ed Pearce


 

Because the video below

is where I grew up:

the streets of Philadelphia.

A Philadelphia where

City Hall's William Penn statue

was taller, by statute

than anything else in town.

A place of history & industry.

Workshop to the world. 

Red brick.

Cobbled streets.

Leafy suburbs.

A time and place that will never come again.

And while too much nostalgia is unhealthy

it is also a powerful drug & tonic,

as we walk once more

in that earlier lifetime;

younger, future-dazzled,

pre - disillusionment.

We walk there now,

remembering our dreams,

yet with the God-like knowledge

of how those dreams are turning out.

Intoxicating!

(just ask Proust)

We walk too, `neath vanished skies,

with those 

with whom

we long to walk 

just once more;

Ah when we were young

and the world green!

Fear not the future,

for we've already lived

a beautiful one.

Or even more than one.

And we're still not

done;

You and I.

                          Walk on!   Fondly, cloudia

My Team Loses

Aloha!

Thanks for visiting :)

“The less I behave like Whistler's mother  the night before,  the more I look like her  the morning after.”

Tallulah Bankhead

"Baseball is almost the only orderly thing

 in a very unorderly world.

 If you get three strikes,

 even the best lawyer in the world


 can't get you off."

Bill Veeck

"Especially in times of darkness,
that is the time to love,
That an act of love
might tip the balance."


Aeschylus

Funny,

I often call San Francisco:
 "My Hometown that I never lived in."

What a great, great city!


 Congratulations on beating my childhood Phillies
for the Pennant.

Thank you, Phillies
for an exciting pennant series and a great season!

That last out was the most exciting baseball possible.

And just remember:
 Baseball is a gentleman's game.

The visitors bat first.

(But then our team has the last crack at the ball,

 the last say :)

You don't hate the other team.

You save THAT for the World Series;

You hate that other, strange league!

And Texas?

I thought Gov Rick Perry was seceding. (Click HERE)

PPPPPPLEASE!!

The American League isn't even REAL, historic ball.

Not like we play it in the National League.
  Fact.


(I propagandize, you decide)

So:

Texas against The Bay?

Who do you think I'm rooting for?

GO LIBERAL-HOMOSEXUAL-TECHNO-ARTIST-HIPPIE-JAZZ

 CAPITOL CITY!

(There are nice folks in Texas like our blogger pal Travis;

Visit him here. 

But exception that proves the rule, know what I'm sayin`?)

     Have a wonderful, irreplaceable day! cloudia