The Nostalgia Thread

[xita]

I spent too much time on Asteroids, I don't even know why but I was good.

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"No more twat. No more twat for me. Twat gets me into trouble!" - Crack Whore Jenny, The L Word

[bytrsuite]

Seeing the kitten logo at the top of the board made me nostalgic for the old Pens banner. That thing was so cool. True, it hasn't been that long, but long enough. Just for old time's sake, "stupid ezboard."

[Zooeys_Bridge]

I don't know if this should go here considering it's not really my nostalgia, but someone else's.

I found this letter yesterday in a collection I'm archiving at work. Fell out of a letter d. 1951. It struck me and I thought I'd share with you all.


Dear Rolfe,

I am glad that you feel better - you sound better, and as tho the summer had done you good. Who the hell is Charley Bell? Also I don't know what the muscle-trouble is, so my sympathy, tho honest, is of necessity vague.

Me, I seem to be excessively healthy - not bright but bursting at the seams. Revolting.

Voices from the past all over the place. Lone reprint from Vennie Copland of her columnized-in-the-local-paper notes on Conference. Afternoon with Alice Trunslow, in Litenfield for a wedding. Phone calls from Shirley. Letters from P. Cobb, but I guess I mentioned that. They all seem remote and of another worldish - you know?

Breaking with you is a little like having died, except I can't stay dead, I've got to go on living. And I learn, I learn. For a long time I felt(does this bore you?) like a vacuum in a vacuum, and there are still times when things get almost too static and meaningless to be born with any grace. Either these are becoming fewer or else they're sort of spreading and melting into one another and getting bearable just by sheer ubiquity; I don't know which. Anyway, I don't love you any more, nor hate you, either: the you of now has no connection with the you I worshipped - maybe it wasn't I who died but you.

-Connie

[Paint the Sky]

What a fabulous letter, Rachel. It has me totally fascinated and even moreso as i read it and re-read it.

In my head I hear this clipped upperclass English accent as I read the words - think Celia Johnston in 'Brief Encounter'. The voice is tight, polite, almost bored until that last paragraph when it breaks with emotion.

God, that final paragraph is just beautiful, and so sad. He must have hurt her so very badly.

Um, I have nothing on topic ... runs out quickly before anyone notices I've been in

[Zooeys_Bridge]

The letter was such a delight, let me tell you.

The collection is about 14 boxes of books, letters, notes, yadda yadda.

There were four boxes packed to the brim with letters from Rolfe. From 1940-1948 he wrote her daily. No Sunday letters, but some days she got two. And then in the mid-fifties, the letters became more sparse. Maybe dozens for the year instead of hundreds. Something must have happened, and I want to know. He stopped calling her 'darling', and their letters became more about the work they were doing, writings they published. Then I opened the last letter he wrote to her before he died in 1967.

I've spent weeks knowing this woman intimately, though one-sided. I know Rolfe was married. That he was a professor. That he was a writer and poet. I don't know how they met, how they began their affair, how or why it ended, and after reading her letter, her beautiful beautiful letter, I'm craving the pieces to the story I don't know. It's maddening.

[umgaynow]

When this time of year comes around I can't help thinking about going for walks with my Grammy in the nippy November air after Thanksgiving dinner when I was a kid...a ramble through the fields or down to the brook...the smell of snow in the air or maybe just woodsmoke...but those twilights, so stark and grey the rest of the winter, felt so warm when she was holding my hand and the wind was stinging my little freckled cheeks...knowing there was a toasty warm fire back at the house and maybe we'd even get to make popcorn in the fireplace...I loved that when I was a kid! God, I miss her

[Willowtree252]

Cold days and making molasses out of surger cane with loved ones that are no more. I love Mississippi its a whole diffrent time and place even now.

[Pinocchio1940]

I'm much younger than many here, but through my grandmother, dad, etc. I live in both the present and the past. Some of my interests consist of things that were made before I ever was born.

Many of the Disney films date back before my time, and I suppose most of my generation have no knowledge beyond what the films mean now. Many of the features and shorts were hand drawn, and hand painted.

I am very much aware of records and the saying about a broken record. Naturally, the old 78 RPM records will not play if the record is damaged. My grandmother also has a record player dating back from the 1900's. I also collect toys that were made in that era. I often think imagination becoming scarce nowadays because while the technology to preserve things is advancing, toys from today often, IMO, play for you, not to educate you.