Nostalgia 092715

People appear to love the game of " what if-if only,."  Academics entertain students with what if: what if the south had won the American Civil war; what if the colonial powers had broken up China instead of trying to own it all: what if Al Smith had been a Protestant rather than a Catholic; what if the Indians had beaten back the white man's land grab or Santa Anna had defeated the Texans.  Give it up prof it didn't happen, it's not going to happen and the outcomes would have been totally different than expectations.

If only is a more egalitarian game, everyone plays at some point in life.  If only you married your high school sweetheart or if only you hadn't.  If only you knew then what you know now.  If only you had invested in APPLE when it first opened.  If only and what if are exercises in futility generated by "publish or perish" and deep disappointment of paths taken.  The games look backward at choices as if they were a "Y" in the road, but you can't go back to that "Y" it no longer exist.  Life travels from where you are not where you were. Different choices equal different outcomes, change one, change future options; the past is not reversible.

Nostalgia also looks back but for pleasant memories of what was rather than with disappointment.  Nostalgia is a game of the elderly, remember when!

A gallon of gas, a pack of cigarettes, a working man's lunch and all day movies were all ten cents.  Even panhandlers welcomed a dime.  Phone calls were a nickel, at phone booths everywhere and MA BELL's helpful operators were romantic visions of beauty to lonely GIs.

Kids walked to school in safety, the boys carrying girls' books, by high school they would be holding hands.  Local cops knew everyone on the street stopping to chat while keeping neighborhood kids in line.  He earned his flat feet and took great pride that he had never shot anyone.  After 20 or so years they might get a three wheel Harley for their beat but they would get off to still talk with their old friends along the street.

The Dodgers actually played in Brooklyn and farm teams reach out to kids playing pickup games on vacant sandlots where kids actually played for fun.  Almost everyone paid cash and debt was low.  Radio ruled the airways sending imaginations soaring while selling beer and soap.  Shade tree mechanics could fix anything and taught generations to repair cars and invent the future.  Boarding a plane was pleasant experience; the stews were young and beautiful.  The meals were good and flying at 8,000 feet gave window seats a real view.  Ethics and integrity were honored traits in business and politics.

A nostalgic view doesn't generate a desire to return to a distant past.  What ifs and if only and a return to some mythical past are the new conservative political game.  Their political game interpretations ignores the realities of the past.  The past had nostalgic high points but its reality incorporated more deep dark points.  The future begins from where we are, not from were we were.  Politics should look to the future not to a mythical past that never really existed.