I started thinking about New Year’s Eve and what’s coming this year, in 2016….
What year would you like to go BACK TO? And WHY? As a child? Five years ago?
Got anything you’d like to share with us? Was there a particular age you loved? Something wonderful happened in a certain year?
WHAT?!!
Z
Please, READERS, keep any input on the posts ON TOPIC. Thanks!
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The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost,
Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration,
politics without God, heaven without hell.
William Booth
“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”
― William Saroyan
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill
Ignorance is not an opinion, liberals
I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. C. S. Lewis
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
THERE WILL BE NO THREATS OF ANY KIND AT THIS BLOG, TO POLITICIANS OR OTHER COMMENTERS. thank you.
geeez2014
GeeeZ ....
Each time this topic arises, I have the same reaction: DO-OVER!!
It’s been a damned good run . . . raised by good grandparents, attended good schools, did all the dirty jobs boys did back then, got a couple years’ worth of college and then did 24 years in the Navy, walked around and looked at stuff in 10 different countries, lived in a foreign country for 7 years, finished my MA and taught college classes for 15 years, still have the same wife, none of our kids or grandkids are in jail or on drugs, and we have ZERO debt.
It don’t git no better’n’at. And I wanna go back and do it all over again, same way, same people, same places. Only differences I’d make would be no smoking, less fatty meat, and better dental hygiene. Otherwise, DO-OVER!!!
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OK, I want to go back and do bocopros! 🙂 Actually, I wouldn’t mind a quick visit to great memories of the past and visit with those no longer here, but I wouldn’t want to give up what and who I have right now. Hug and love those around you right now, and have a blessed New Year all.
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Love to do the college years again. The weight of future responsibilities was yet to fall upon my shoulders.
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1972 — the year that I graduated from college and married Mr. AOW.
We had very little in the way of material possessions, drove beater cars, and lived in a two-room cottage without a bathroom. But we were happy beyond belief! And we were “on the go” almost every weekend.
And I was young back then, with no back or knee problems and no eye troubles.
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PS: And no grey hair, either!
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AOW — re the 2-room thingie; been there.
Milady & I started out in the early 60s in a 2-room, no bathroom, unreliable electricity, frequent water shut-off place . . . no A/C, no TV, no fone, no car, and precious little cash.
Had. A. Great. Time!! Young, limberbacked, immortal, bulletproof, cast-iron stomachs, and able to sleep through traffic noise, domestic dust-ups, music from bars down the street, gunfire, screaming kids, and sweltering tropical heat.
Kitchen was a disaster, just a propane burner on a cast-iron stand, and half the time there was no water in the sink faucet. Took many of our evening meals on base at the club or in Chinese restaurants.
But the eggs were fresh, and they tasted like eggs, and the pork was fresh, and it tasted like pork, and the bread was fresh, and it had attitude, personalidad. No preservatives, no growth stimulants, no insecticides, just natural flavor.
Finally, tho, I got a gold chinstrap for my flat-hat, and we began staying in Navy housing, most of which was absolutely guh-RATE. Not sure how I’d manage today without A/C, reliable current, internet access, and a car that doesn’t need fixin every other weekend. And I just KNOW my wife wouldn’t survive without her cellfone.
Ah . . . tempi cambi.
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FANTASTIC responses, everybody! EXACTLY what I hoped to hear…I love this stuff!!
I’m also happy to hear of such happy days for you all..
There’s a real message in the ‘good ol’ days’ of living on a tight budget but happy in love, isn’t there! AOW…NO BATHROOM!?? Run that by me again!?
AOW said “Happy beyond belief”….doesn’t get better than THAT!
I’d have to say that I wish I could have the early days of my marriage with Mr. Z back….particularly our Christmases for a lot of reasons. Or, OF COURSE, come to think of it, LIVING IN PARIS…those four years. Oh, brother, what I’d do to be back then/there.
Jerry “visit with those no longer here”…YES! Of course…so right. You know the song “Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas!”? I hadn’t heard it ONCE this year (and I do listen to Christmas music in the car a lot) and finally heard it ON Christmas Day and every time I hear the line “Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow,” I cry….so, there were the tears, driving from Mom’s to my sister’s for Christmas dinner…but good tears, you know?
Bocopro, I hope all my readers feel they’d like to RE DO their lives….that’s a terrific gift.
I definitely would have done some things differently……need to think on that a bit.
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I was born in 1928, a year before the Great Depression. We lived in a small, 2 br. 1 ba. frame house on a busy street in L.A. My father worked two jobs, a full time factory worker and started his own business in a shop in back of our home. This went on for 2 years until he quit his job and built a new store a block away. Three years later, he built a new 3 br. 3 ba. 3,200 sq. ft. home in a neighborhood 15 minutes away for cash. By the end of WW ll he retired at age 49. This is the discipline I was taught and am thankful for it. His story as a foreign born American taught me how fortunate I was to be born here. I thank God every day for having been born in such a time and from such caring parents. I have tried to pass this on to our children and grandchildren. It seems to be working, at least on SOME of them! Of course, there are many things I wish I had done, hadn’t done, or done differently, but that’s to be expected because life is a learning experience.
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Mal — damn, I thot I wuz old. You got me by a dozen years.
As for the bathroom, I imagine AOW’s situation was similar to mine — no private indoor facilities, just a common outside commode and separate tiny little shower enclosure. The old man who owned the place had built up dirt on one side of the thing and installed about a dozen 30-gallon barrels up there which would be replenished during the early morning hours when the water pressure was reliable.
One had a hose coming down into the commode with a small bucket you could fill from the petcock and flush. The others sat up there in the sun all day absorbing heat, so you could go out before bedtime and get a nice bath by filling a bucket and using a dipper to rinse yourself off with.
Four families shared the water, so sometimes it ran out since the women often had to go there to rinse their veggies and clean their cookwear when the pressure dropped in the evenings.
I never did know why the pressure was so bad in that particular area of that town (in the P.I.), but we adapted to it. Sometimes we’d go on base to the gym and get a shower. Real treat. We moved to another street some years later and didn’t have the water-pressure problem. By that time we had a buncha kids, and clean water was kinda necessary. FINALLY got on-base housing the last 3 years I spent in that country . . . 150 yards from the beach, palm trees, papayas in the back yard, chickens, housemaid. Movin on up!
Still like to go back and re-live those days . . . given, of course, that she and I are once again young and bulletproof.
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Somebody just tried to get this printed here and I have no desire to allow that person “in” to my blog so I’m only posting his comment:
“I’d love to go back to 2000 and see Al Gore become the real President and how the world today as we know it would be so much better than it is”
I thought you all needed a good laugh, and a good cry, considering these people vote and truly don’t understand. HOW many millions did Gore make selling his unsuccessful liberal channel to Al Jazeerah? Wasn’t it SEVENTY MILLION?
Was it Gore who warns the waters are going to rise and drown our coastlines and built himself a house overhanging the California waters?
Was it Gore who invented the Internet? 🙂
I got a kick out of the comment…hope you do, too.
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Somebody just tried to get this printed here and I have no desire to allow that person “in” to my
“I’d love to go back to 2000 and see Al Gore become the real President and how the world blog so I’m only posting his comment:today as we know it would be so much better than it is”
I thought you all needed a good laugh, and a good cry, considering these people vote and truly don’t understand. HOW many millions did Gore make selling his unsuccessful liberal channel to Al Jazeerah? Wasn’t it SEVENTY MILLION?
Was it Gore who warns the waters are going to rise and drown our coastlines and built himself a house overhanging the California waters?
Was it Gore who invented the Internet? 🙂
I got a kick out of the comment…hope you do, too.
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No.
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Imp thought MAL and BOCOPRO might enjoy this….so ENJOY!
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Bocopro,
Mr. AOW and I had a situation a bit different from yours.
My grandmother, whom we were caregiving so well on the qt that she never realized that we were here to keep an eye on her, lived in the main house here on this property. The main house had one bathroom on the first floor. So, Mr. AOW and I would dash the few steps from the cottage to the main house via the paved, very short path.
In the cottage, we had a “pee pot” — an old-fashioned slop jar with a lid and a handle.
Our cottage did have running water and a decent kitchen — just no bathroom because the county, even back then, had fits about anyone else hooking into the sewage system. We had our own phone line separate from my grandmother’s phone line.
We had central heat of sorts: a propane gas heater in one room (the kitchen/living room combo) and an electric heater in the other room (the bedroom, with a huge stereo system). The two rooms of the cottage were quite large for back in the day: at least 150 square feet each.
We had no AC until some eight years after we moved into the cottage. We didn’t get the AC because of heat, but rather because of my severe allergies to molds and grasses.
We lived in that cottage from June 1972 through August 1982. My grandmother passed in September 1981, and we took an entire year cleaning out and spiffing up the main house, where we are still living now. The cottage is now a storage area/man cave.
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Z,
It wasn’t that bad not having a bathroom in the cottage. Really. The distance from the cottage to the main-house bathroom was fewer in steps than from the upstairs of the main house to the downstairs bathroom. See my above comment to Bocopro.
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1969. … When I was 17, it was a very good year. 🙂 I would graduate high school next year. The cars were super cool. Everything was a muscle car. If you look at the cars today like the Camaro, Dodge Charger, etc, they are all styled like they were in 1969. 1970 brought emissions controls and an era of (excuse me) pussified cars.
Beside the cars, there were the girls, motorcycles, and tons of good times ala the movie American Graffiti. I was 17. I was invincible, I was indestructible. Not so much these days. I can’t even get a girl to send me a selfie. Even with her clothes on ! 😉
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Boco… to be 20 and know what you know now. Wow.
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AOW, I didn’t know you had a bathroom so close….glad it wasn’t terrible.
My husband who grew up in German snow said there was little so cold as having to go outside to get to a bathroom in the dead of winter…!! Glad it wasn’t quite like that for you!
Kid, VERY funny 🙂
And to be 20 and know what we ALL know now! Man, oh man.
That’s a good question but I doubt many of us would share WHAT EXACTLY YOU WOULD DO DIFFERENT NOW THAT “YOU KNOW!” :-)??
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Z, Al Gore ! LOL ! Nothing describes the ignorance of libtards more than that, other than electing the beast in 2016…
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AOW, Geeezix, I though -I- was born a poor balck child…
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1974 — I would know where, and when, to invest my money and be stinkin’ rich! *lol* Plus I would leave home and never, ever contact my father again. (Long, boring story.) And I would find my husband 4 years sooner and get married. I need a blue box (i.e. Doctor Who) so I can time travel me thinks. 🙂
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Z, I would do a lot of things differently. A retirement plan started at age 16 for example. Even 5 bucks a week. And I would have bought a few thousand shares of Apple in 2005. And the girls… well… Sacre Bleu!
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Kid, imagine AL GORE as president? Oh, the ego. The ridiculous pontificating…
Sparky…doesn’t sound “Long and boring” to ME, but I’m sorry about that….and God sure made up for your dad, considering how sweetly how you talk about your dear husband!
Kid, great point about investing…if ONLY.
But most folks aren’t that smart or disciplined, which is why it scares me to death to do away with Soc. Sec., and have people have their own private retirement accounts…not many WOULD save, they’d SPEND it.
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Z, yea, social security was created becuase of all the old homeless people on the street. Can you imagine?
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When he first laid those sticks on those skins I was sure it was gonna be Krupa’s magnificent centerpiece in “Sing, Sing, Sing.”
From time to time I go back and play the Andrews Sisters’ “Bugle Boy” and maybe a little Glenn Miller and some Benny Goodman. Never get tired of “In the Mood,” or “Toccata and Fugue” for that matter (particularly enjoy watchin Vanessa Mae play it.”
Also pull up some Mozart (fave is “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”) & Strauss and even a bit of Wagner . . . but not too often on him. Then I always manage to go to Mickey Gilley or Brad Paisley or Johnny Cash just to cleanse my palate.
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I enjoy Moonlight Serenade. How about some Hank Williams.
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Some kinda good music going on here.
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I have always thought the question, what would I do different, is a little silly unless you are cleaning up your golf swing, or getting a second chance in a competition. Getting a second chance with respect to time is just not realizable. Oh, sure, we can all remember certain females in high school or college we say we would like to re-visit, but I have seen some of their pictures after fifty years and they can’t hold a candle to my wife.
Yeah, sure, given a do-over I might have liked to major in economics instead of engineering because that’s the direction my interests led me several years after graduation. However, engineering is a great launching platform for a career in almost anything.
The only thing I would truly change is my attitude towards God. Instead of fighting Him most of my life, I should have been looking for what He wanted me to do, rather than fighting for what I wanted to do. Even now, I have questions as to why my son killed himself. My parents lost three children after they reached adulthood, and three as infants. They were a young family during the Great Depression and had the hard times.
As things stand, now, I would not change anything. We are blessed.
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BOCO…!! I couldn’t agree with you more…I just now listened to the wonderful video music Imp provided and BROTHER, I thought he was going into SING SING SING, too! (DARN, wish he was!) Altho this was nice, too.
Bob…I wish I’d become the stronger believer I am now younger, too….I’m very VERY happy you feel so blessed. It doesn’t get better than that! God bless you. xxx
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Also, I’d say Jitterbug HAD to be THE most fun to dance in all of dancedom since creation!
Sure beats the waltz!! Although I have had some amazing moments waltzing in Vienna, I have to admit!
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Bob: Good answer.
That’s why my answer was “No”.
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