Old Days in Packrat

Old days, good times I remember
Fun days filled with simple pleasures
Drive-in movies, comic books and blue jeans
Howdy doody, baseball cards and birthdays
Take me back to a world gone away
Memories seem like yesterday

Oh, old days, good times I remember
Gold days, days I’ll always treasure
Funny faces full of love and laughter
Funny places, summer nights and streetcars
Take me back to a world gone away
Boyhood memories seem like yesterday

(Old days)
In my mind and in my heart to stay
(Old days)
Darkened dreams of good times gone away

(Old days)
Days of love and feeling fancy free
(Old days)
Days of magic still so close to me

(Old days)
In my mind and in my heart to stay
(Old days)
Darkened dreams of good times gone away

(Old days)
Days of love and feeling fancy free
(Old days)
Days of magic still so close to me

Songwriters
JAMES PANKOW

Performed by Chicago

I can’t say that I, being a female, have any boyhood memories.

The song came to mind as I read through my Open Diary entries. It would seem, upon reading some of the early entries and reading here now, that my life has been at a dead standstill. Some of the issues I dealt with then I still deal with. A proposed museum in our capitol city - never completed (nor, methinks, should it be). Complaints about other employees not doing their jobs, not using logic. The lawsuit - now completed, but not in a way I like. Free Spirit and the fluctuations of our hearts. Mr. Smith. The desire to go to Charleston - still there but now acknowledged to be for a visit and not to make a life there.

I wrote a lot about a friend I called NY. He is still a friend, even though we don’t communicate nearly as much as we used to. In fact I heard from him last week.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the past because so many agency representatives who have been working with me since I began in this office have retired or are preparing to. My counterpart in our sister tribe is 61 and talking about it; his wife is my age, and we’re making plans for our retirement - we’ll travel around in two separate vehicles (because they smoke), my counterpart and his wife in one, their cat and me in the other, doing the research we just don’t have the time to do now.

Another reason the past is on my mind is the Wunderkind. She blazes in with each foot firmly on a different thought: on one hand, she seems to think that nothing existed before her, and on the other, she is very respectful of our tribal history. She commented about her generation having a different, more open mindset that will bring about great changes in our field. I thought the same of mine, I said, but my generation had to fight for historic preservation programs; her program is an offshoot of what we established. I had to justify having this department. It’s been fairly recently as the world turns that we as a tribe have now established this department permanently, where I’m not wondering year to year or even month to month if I’ll have a job. I had to be persistent in getting funding; my program was funded for a few months here with this account, a few months there with that account. I worked for free. I went without an income as I fought for this program. I had to pack up and leave a couple of times when the funds or funding opportunities just weren’t there.

I joke that I hung around until the tribe gave me a job. I once said to the secretary who became the chief that I’d be outside his door every day, selling pencils.

Now my office is in a building dedicated to cultural programs, a building just over two years old for which I have been named the manager. Well, I’ve always called it my building.

Affairs of the heart started and quickly ended. I’m a coward, yes, but my passions were elsewhere. I finally decided that dating was too daunting and got in the way, so I wouldn’t do it anymore. I thought I would miss it. I never did. Now I see S on a regular basis, and in him I’ve met my match.

Some of the noters on my entries are diarists I still read; others deleted their diaries before the demise of OD; still others died.

I mentioned my cat - my little queen, M’ow, who left this plane at 19 years to go on other adventures after spending most of that life with me. I still miss her terribly, still shed tears at her absence.

When my other “old lady” came into my life, I wrote of it. The anniversary was in August, and she’s been with me for 14 years. She was full grown when she came home with me. I see how she’s aged, and I don’t want to think about her leaving me.

I still stick my nose in government and our newspaper.

In reading my old entries, I thought I was a better writer then - but I always think that I was a better writer “then”, whenever that may be.

So many things have happened in between then and now that I never thought would happen; I’m still awed.

I still feel I’m in my prime, and I feel good! :)

P.S. Now I can’t get that song out of my head!!!

Last updated October 26, 2015