MUSINGS The mists of time cleared for a brief moment, and I saw us as we were many years ago in another lifetime, another universe. 50 years? No!! 25, maybe, but not 50!!! No way!! How the Hell did this happen? Did we miss a turn? I mean--I mean--Jeez, I don't know what I mean. It just ain't possible! Hokey Smokes, Bullwinkle, is it time to trade in my flying helmet for a walker with a Clarabelle Horn? Why do I still feel and think like I'm 18, and who the hell is that old guy staring at me from the other side my mirror’s glass? Go away! Do you ever get the feeling that you're turning into an apple doll before your very eyes? When store clerks started calling me “sir” 15 years ago, I thought it was their recognition of my regal bearing. Yeah, right! The little pipsqueaks probably thought I was pre-human creature from the Paleolithic era. or Neanderthal at best. On the other hand, when we were young and dewy-eyed in 1959: The Middle-East, Bosnia, “Easy Rider,” JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Watergate, Glam Rock, computers, digital watches, the 1968 Democratic Convention, microwaves, plasma TV, (Fill in your own blanks) were all waiting in the wings. We hadn’t been born in ’59. We were, as yet, unformed and so tragically hip in our naiveté. I’m sure some of you must feel the same about your then-self. In retrospect, we were just young, posturing, children trying to survive our teen-age years, but we each had certain elegance and grace. Those were our tender years. The wondrous events, experiences, and awareness that are and have been an integral part of me for so long weren’t even vague dreams when we left South Shore. My road map to the future looked like a Rorschach test, back then. An ink blot that I interpreted differently each day. All I knew then was that others wrote the expectations and goals for my future--In stone. I was expected to enter a field that was well respected and safe. I did just that, until I had enjoyed about as much of the world of finance as I could stand. As it turned out turned out my future really was written in stone. Sandstone. I wiped the commandments off the stone and replaced them with new ones that I wrote myself, then jumped off grindstone and into The Twilight Zone. No net. No airbag, No safety lines, just a belief in myself and a dream. Who’d a thunk it. The dream came true. I’m looking at an old picture of me wrestling a trained bear in Northern Oregon in 1968 and realizing that was future history in ’59, but has been part of my past for 41 years. Next to it is a picture of me boarding a helicopter wearing serious cold-weather gear so I could go up and direct aerial title shots for a new mini-series. The year was 1978, and the series was to become known as “Dallas.” The year and the series are dim memories, relegated to the past, but for you and I, in 1959, that was still 19 years in the future. The list, photos, and stories are endless. Old and nearly forgotten friends were yet to be met when last I saw you. You may have grandchildren, yet I remember you as you were at 17 or 18. I view each of you much as I would the light of a star, 50 light years away. Your light, to my eye, is new and bright as a diamond, but it was born long ago, and today you may be a super-hot white dwarf, a dim red giant, or you may be burned out. My own light emanations are probably the same for you. Theatre of the mind. My mind is a gauze-diffused lens that remembers most things accurately, but is capable, on occasion, of softening the harsh lines of reality and time. I find that a blessing in my profession. I write. I often use events, feelings, and beliefs that are rooted deep in my past as a springboard to launch me into a new tale. Invariably, my mind alters the elements and their importance. Life’s true forced perspective. My world is one in which the past and present are inexorably fused. No one ever really leaves. Cary Grant, Lawrence Olivier, Bob Mitchum, and James Dean never die. John Barrymore is still young, but far too old to be playing Mercutio, in the 1936 film version of Romeo and Juliet. All I have to do is hit the remote and they are back with me, sometimes young sometimes not so young, and I’m the age I was when I first saw the picture. Do you ever feel that way when you TIVO something? I see an old re-run of an “Charlie’s Angels,” “Dirty Harry,” “Miami Vice,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Rain Man,” and so many others, and I remember everything that happened on the project as though it occurred yesterday or, maybe, earlier today. My life’s events and people are always in some form of present tense, never aging or diminishing in my mind. Only seen from a different viewpoint. Is it like that in your world? My mind’s eye pictures you as you were five decades ago. I see “Lazy” Lenz, “Listless” Leaf, and “Stonewall” Stern on stage trying to do an Ernie Kovacs shtick. We were beyond bad. I hear Steve Katz speaking in perfect “Duck,” I see Ken Manaster in his perfectly pressed ROTC uniform. I see Henny Youngman and The Diamonds performing at our high school dances. I see the girls I thought were impossibly beautiful, and feel the painful shyness that kept me from speaking to them. I see almost all of you as bright-eyed and looking toward the future. Those, indeed, were our tender years. I’m curious about who you are now. How did you become the you of now? Have you fulfilled your dreams? What events, adventures, travels, and guideposts have led you to now? Is the present tense of you happy? I hope so. I would love to hear or read your stories. I’m sure that each, in its own way, is fascinating and unique. Best at ya, |