Those WERE the Days…Weren't They?

Thanks to everyone who commented on- and off-blog about my last two entries. The reviews were mixed – some of you liked them, some…not so much.

But hey, life goes on and my struggle to find a voice continues.

This morning on the way to work I was behind someone who had a tiny little bag hanging from their rearview mirror. I have no idea what it was (air freshener, bag of garlic to ward off vampires) but I noticed it, because I notice and ruminate upon tiny, obscure details while forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge.

Anyway, the bag…

It put me in mind of some chewing gum I used to like when I was a little girl. The gum itself looked like gold nuggets, and it came in a little burlap-ish, drawstring bag. Anybody remember it?

Of course almighty Google has promptly given me a picture.

So, yes, <<< THAT gum.

In the space of mere seconds, in my mind’s eye I could see myself at age 5, holding my grandmother’s hand as we walked from her house, up one street and over half a block, to the little grocery store in town.

Three things were vividly real to me about this memory: the feel of my grandmother’s hand in mine – she would’ve been well past 70 then, and I can still feel the smooth, papery feel of her skin; the dim interior of that little shop that was only in a storefront space but somehow had everything people in town needed to bake a cake; and the fact that my grandmother used one of those little pouches to keep her money in…and she pinned it to her slip.

Do women even wear slips anymore? I’m sure to my grandmother, born in 1895, putting on a slip was as natural as putting on her dress or her shoes. It’s amazing how seeing such a small, insignificant, random thing that only a weirdo like me would even notice brought a flood of memories rushing in…my grandmother in her navy blue dress with white polka dots, money pinned in a Gold Nugget bag, white sweater over her shoulders, snow white hair in a bun on the back of her head… She died the month I turned six, and yet those images and scents and feelings are right there, you know? Right under the surface of the churning chaos of my mind…

My grandmother…her slips and housedresses and sweaters… She never wore pants in her life, I’m sure. Thinking about her naturally got me thinking about my recent obsession interest in “I Love Lucy.” When I was off work for a month, I watched the first 2 seasons on DVD (which I had picked up a couple of weeks prior for a mere $13 each) and was reminded of summers at my Aunt Mary’s, eating Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup on a scarred TV tray and watching Lucy followed by “Perry Mason.”

See? Those WERE the days.

Well, what I really meant in that title is that I feel some sort of nostalgia for those seemingly innocent days of the 50’s. Can you be nostalgic about something you never experienced?

I’ve often said that I was born in the wrong era. I adore vegging out happily watching Lucy re-runs: her house dresses, her aprons, her little kitchen with its plug-in percolator…her evening gowns, her tidy little hairdo, her relentless drive to get into the act… So formulaic, so predictable…and I love it. I want to be Lucy. I want Ethel to drop by unannounced, popping in the back door with her hair in a scarf: “Hi girl!”

<sigh>

But, those days are gone – and it seems like all the gentility, gracious living, and simplicity went with them. I’ll never be Lucy.

Well, maybe I could be.

But I’d be the Lucy who lit her fake nose on fire while trying to disguise myself from Bill Holden.