Things Old People Say…

Published on by Grace

Back in the day…Yeah, we say that a lot.

Back in the early days of the interwebz there were bulletin boards. That’s how we connected with each other.  Some boards that I perused were given over to nostalgia and my attitude towards that was – If i wasn’t there to share the experience with you why would I care?

How do you differentiate between telling a story about a time and place and experience that other people might be interested in and telling a story that is meaningful only to the people who were there at that time? What’s the difference between nostalgia and recounting a meaningful incident from your past.  What makes it meaningful and what is just something that happened that still makes you smile.

Yesterday as we were coming home from a doctor’s appointment in an Uber, it was long past lunchtime and my husband and I were hungry. Traveling along we passed many restaurants and I jokingly said “Maybe we can stop at a drive-thru and get some food”.  Which reminded me of a story I like to recount about an incident that makes always me laugh but is totally unrelatable except to those of us who were there or anyone who is familiar with Long Island City in the 1980’s.

Aside from the friend I was with and possibly my brother – no one reading this would understand why it was such a hoot to go through the Long Island City White Castle at 1 in the morning in a limo…

Yet that memory will always make me laugh. Just remembering my limo days makes me smile. What was a working class girl from Queens doing tootling around New York City in Lincoln Town cars and limousines?

Good times – but my good times. Why would anyone else care?

 

8 thoughts on “Things Old People Say…”

    1. Maybe I’ll tell it – it’s a very short story. I’ll pair it with a link to story I wrote some years ago about when I was a teenager and we went to the movies…

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    1. Plus as I’ve told you many times, you can write your ass off. The best part of this, from my perspective, is that there seems to be something very NYC about pondering why anyone else would care. It’s great.

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    2. I sometimes think – no, I know – I’m an very ordinary person who lived a very ordinary life except that often when I look back I realize perhaps it wasn’t – at least not for someone like me being who I was and where I came from…

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      1. Exactly. And just the time period you grew up within – in and of itself – look at how much things have changed since then. You know, we thought we would have Rosie Jetson but instead we have cell phones. Your girlhood in the 50’s. Whatever you were doing in the 70’s. It’s all special to me and those who follow you closely. Your life and memories matter and people want to hear about it.

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  3. Even though no one else would understand why the story was so funny the fact that you have such a wonderful way of telling stories would make it quite delightful to read about.

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