Memories "light the corner of my mind" this Easter Springtime....

I watched an old movie, something I seldom do.  The movie was “The Way We Were” and what I found most interesting was the mini documentary that went along with the movie.  The most part that interested me most was the discussion of finding the right song.   They needed a song that would transport the viewer back to memories. 

The composer chosen for job was Marvin Hamlisch and the wordsmiths… the Bergman’s.   They describe in the documentary their work to craft the perfect “vehicle” to set the mood.  They said the title, “The Way We Were” was wonderful all in itself, but that they had the first line originally “daydreams light the corners of my mind”.    When they presented the song to Barbra Streisand she changed… one note and one word, a word that became the most important change …  the word daydreams to “Memories”.

Picture of my Mothers Family..Her Father & Mother and her!

The song won the 1973 Academy Award for best song in a movie, a Golden Globe and became one of the songs of the century!   To this day I am sure many of us enter a little piece of reverie as we listen to it… since memories are a haunting part of our life; they are something that comes back to us …sometimes good, sometimes bad…sometimes happy…sometimes sad.

                                           Rare photo of my Grandfather and all my Messere Cousins

My memories seem to start in the  Spring, which is supposed to be a new beginning, a time of rebirth when the earth wakes from the sleep of winter.  The sap has started to run and the great giants on the hill have started to sprout buds that will soon bring leaves that will last until fall’s last call.  Added to this are my memories of the many summer days spent by the lake, by the glimmering water, with the brush of soft sand against my feet when I walked the shore dreaming of the future.  Never expecting it to be where I am today.

Spring for me brings both my best memories and my saddest memoires. 

My best are the many childhood weekends around Easter… since most members of my family shared April time birthdays.  Grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, mom, dad, myself… these birthdays all turned into weekend parties, one after another.  Parties where everyone got together and cousins played at life.  Easter meant seeing some cousins from a long distance that came to the city to visit Grandma.  These were fun times to be sure.

Then things changed and I moved to the country where – ironically - all of the new neighbors shared April birthdays and the parties began again. 

Those times and people have all passed as well… and I am left here with only memories of them.  Lingering sad memories… as death end life.  In the past some of my best friends died on the three days around my birthday… and their memories though certainly fond ones, are wonderful… but they are sad.   They leave me with a feeling of being alone…. like sad memories all of my family who are no longer here. 

The wise man said that you can never go back… you can only go forward.  And so we must… we can only relive that past as “Memories” that light the corners of our mind.

Eaton Memories ..listen to the music and enjoy

The holiday, Syracuse University, the snow, & the Beatles!

Well the holiday is over… thank heaven (no pun intended)…. instead of pink, yellow and white it was totally ORANGE! 

The one nice day lured us here in CNY into a springtime mood that crashed with snow and cold.  It was really quite an unusual few days.  To me what was strange is that all the people I talked with this weekend, and all those who “Facebooked” me about this or that…. would set me thinking and I would suddenly start silently singing the Beatles “Nowhere Man”.   Nowhere Man…me singing Beatles!

It occurred to me that everyone’s point of view depended on what reporter or news station they watched.  I could tell the Fox station listeners, I could tell the Rachel Maddow followers, the “right wingers”, the NRA followers…Christian Conservatives...people just posted and reposted or repeated news that was really someone else’s opinion.

He's a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

It seems that no one formed their own opinion… they just kept forwarding something that someone else posted or spoke and what turned out to be someone else’s opinions.

Doesn't have a point of view

Knows not where he's going to

Isn't he a bit like you and me?

I hunted down facts including going to the investigative sites like SNOPES, and in almost every case the information was just half truths made to look the way the writer’s or journalists…(few real journalists left) opinion was.

He's as blind as he can be

Just sees what he wants to see

Nowhere Man can you see me at all?

If the they were Republican friends it was all Obama’s fault, if the were Democratic friends it was Bush and Regan’s fault, if it was guns it was hateful NRA posts. But I could not solicit any thoughtful discussion...no give and take… just absolutes.  The FB posts were.... here is my picture with Thomas Jefferson’s words against your picture with Eisenhower’s words., and for the record did they actually say that!

I am not particularly political and I embrace all religions and admire peaceful solutions to problems and yet, I can never seem to find someone willing to take a thoughtful, quiet approach… a step to the middle ground.

One thing I have learned in my life so far, you can’t seem to change another’s opinion, and what has led to hatred and conflict in the past is that few people will leave the safety of their source of opinions, to investigate another’s opinions. 

Just think if people did it could lead to compromise rather than our daily confrontations. We need the “peacemakers”, I assume that is why many great thinkers retreated from society to reflect and become enlightened….

Nowhere Man, please listen

You don't know what you're missing

Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!

So really aren’t most of us the "Nowhere Man”.

Listen to the Beatles!