Do you often find yourself reminiscing? Looking at old photos, recalling past experiences, sharing memories with friends about a time when there wasn’t social media or artificial intelligence, and political ads weren’t supposed to mention the opponent’s name.
As the song goes, “Those were the days.”
But what touches me most are those spontaneous bittersweet feelings of nostalgia which go deeper than reminiscing about the good old days.
Nostalgia is different than reminiscing, although closely related. Nostalgia is internal — something you feel: an emotional experience that comes when a memory carries warmth, longing, or bittersweet pleasure; while reminiscing is an external activity, something you do: telling a story without the emotional connection.
Feelings of nostalgia can happen when you are reminiscing, but for me, it often occurs when a sound, a smell, a picture, or a comment triggers some special moment from my past:
• A song by the Four Tops reminding me of my first date, or my first dance, or my first kiss, or — I’ll stop there!
• The wind rushing through the car window, and imagining myself as that blonde teenager driving to nowhere in my grandmother’s ‘63 Buick Skylark convertible.
• The smell of chlorine from the indoor swimming pool during the winter evening swim lessons my father drove me to.
• A cool August morning, camping on Lake Michigan — when you could pitch a tent on the lakefront.
• Or before bedtime, reading to my children Winnie-the-Pooh, then Willie Wonka and Harry Potter.
Those moments can lift my spirits, but they also come with a touch of sadness because I know I can’t go back. (Which isn’t all bad. I want to forget all those misadventures that, when I look back, I ask myself, “What was I thinking?”)
Nostalgia can be good for our well-being; it helps us stay connected to identity, meaning, and emotional stability at a time when life is full of transitions. It reminds us of who we are, where we came from, and what has mattered in our lives. And it’s not escaping into the past — although there are days when listening to the news, I wouldn’t mind escaping to a different time!
So, for you, what triggers your sense of nostalgia — that longing for those special memories that can brighten up a dreary winter day?
But one warning. Be careful when you open that shoebox of old letters you found tucked away in the basement. You may find some unexpected surprises and think, “Oh, I don’t remember writing that!”
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Brain Tease: For this week, see if you can solve these anagrams where the letters are rearranged to spell a related word. The first four are common anagrams, and the next four are anagrams of popular slang terms from the 60s.
1. Lives
2. Dirty room
3. The classroom
4. Moon starer
5. Four at
6. Arbed
7. Knee
8. Wells
•••
The television game show hosted by Gene Rayburn where the celebrity panel and the contestants answered silly fill-in-the-blank questions was the Match Game.
I received correct answers from Donna Mollet, Judy Kiser, Shelley Hinatsu, Doug Nelson, Keith and Marlene Clymer, Lana Tepfer, Nancy Higgins, and Bruce Johnson, who said Roy Rogers learned to yodel listening to a cylinder player his dad brought home. But Robert Liberty and Rebecca Abrams, who answered that Roy Rogers learned to yodel when he sat on a “Cactus,” are this week’s winners of a quilt raffle ticket each.
And last week, while drinking a bottle of Perrier as I crashed into my sister’s bumper car, I missed Pat Kelley, Becky Podvent, Rebecca Abrams, Pat Evenson-Brady, Ken Jernstedt, and Lana Tepfer.
•••
During the first half of the 1960s, the secret agent genre became widely popular with the release of the James Bond movies, and the television shows Secret Agent, Mission Impossible, and Man from U.N.C.L.E. Because of their popularity, Sid Caesar and Buck Henry were hired to create a television series that parodied the genre.
For this week’s “Remember Question,” what was the name of this comedy spy television series that premiered on NBC in 1965, and starred Don Adams as Agent 86, Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, and Edward Platt as The Chief? Email your answer to mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, leave a message at 541-980-4645, or send your answer with a 2026 model of a Shoe Phone.
•••
Well, it’s been another week, trying to stay busy — but not too busy. Until we meet again, much of our wisdom comes from remembering the lessons from our past.
•••
“I look back with a mix of emotions: sadness for the people who are gone, nostalgia for times that have passed, but immense gratitude for the wonderful opportunities that came my way.”
— Dick Van Patten
1. Elvis
2. Dormitory
3. Schoolmaster
4. Astronomer
5. Far out
6. Bread
7. Keen
8. Swell
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