When Nostalgia Becomes an Art Form

by Skip Cohen

​It's Sunday, and as usual, I'm miles away from writing about marketing. Actually, I'm literally miles away from Florida and my home office too. We came back to Ohio for a milestone high school reunion, which once you get past thirty years, they all become a walk down memory lane...and the older you get, the slower the walk. 

But being back where I grew up has profoundly impacted me - all as a result of the nostalgia brought about by simply being here. It's a beautiful but bitter-sweet feeling to look back and realize how much things have changed.

• We got here three days ago, and driving around town every turn brings back a memory - all of them good. My old neighborhood brought out memories of baseball games in the street, playing army in the woods, sleep-outs in the summertime, and my Dad tying a rope on the car's bumper and towing us on sleds in the winter. He'd be arrested today for child endangerment.
• Driving by my grandmother's house, I could taste the raspberries she'd send me to pick in her backyard. The roses I planted last year at our home in Florida are a spinoff of watching my grandmother care for her rose garden when I was a kid.
• Being at the reunion last night, which sadly was small (250+ in the class and under fifty showing up), made me feel surprisingly proud in a "still standing" sort of way. Seeing a few old friends was fantastic, but it was more about who we are today than who we were yesterday. Although, I had to laugh over one classmate reminding me how hot my wife was and asking me how I got the cheerleader! Seriously, at this point, the playing field has been leveled, and everything we thought was important back then just doesn't matter today.
• All around us have been turn-back-the-clock kind of events this weekend. For example, the Friday night car show in the town square was a kick. It was loaded with muscle cars from the 60s, owned mainly by guys in their 70s. It was simply a trip to take in. At night when we turned on the TV in the hotel to watch something for a few minutes before going to sleep we were sucked into those Time/Life infomercials, again turning back the clock. Our two favorites were 150 classic rock songs from the 60s followed by the Ed Sullivan classics in rock - introducing every group from Elvis to the Beatles to the Stones. All supported with the video recordings of each group - it again took us down Memory Lane.

​But the best moments came from being with our friends, "Hoss" and Melissa. Before the pandemic, we'd be here at least once a year and stay at their home. Each night there's an almost sacred routine of sitting on their back porch and sharing the backstories of our lives - both current and past. The laughter is often pushed to the max as tears roll down my cheeks. It got me thinking about how my Dad would lose control when something hit him that was beyond funny.

Life is too short, but if you don't learn to cherish the past, you can never appreciate your ability to savor the present. And here's my point - today's smiles are tomorrow's most valuable memories. You can't slow down the clock, but you can make sure you don't miss a minute of being in the present. And those long, poignant views in your rearview mirror help you to appreciate the journey yet to come.

Wishing everybody a day to kick back and spend time with the ones most special in your life; make a few new memories and start writing the next chapter of backstories for your own walk down Memory Lane years from now. As always, go for those long eleven-second hugs, and don't waste a minute worrying about what you have to do tomorrow.

​Happy Sunday...or Monday if you're on the other side of the world!