Drifting

 It is like "A Little Bit of Emotion" a 1979 song from the Kinks, Low Budget album. There are things we see on the surface that we show all the time. There are also pieces of us that we will not show. At 25 years old, we get stuck in the trivial life, just existing, always believing that tomorrow, next week, month, or year will be different. At 35, it is the same thing, as is 45 and 55. But of course, by now you realize that it is happening.

If I could have the 58-year-old perspective at 21, everything would be so much less messy. At 58, all of the days that I have just settled for mock any kind of wisdom I might think to turn over as cards to win the game. I lament how my generation and the one before it was solving everything, but we have only made things worse. I do not feel sorry for me but for my kids. 

As I look in the mirror, in my eyes I see the person who has looked back decade after decade. Secretly I wish to send messages back to him. Nothing too deep, just a practical slap to wake up.

If I think about it too much, I become agitated. The longer I dwell on it, my anger grows, and I want to just start screaming and not stop until it clears away all of the superficial cobwebs that I no longer have the patience for.

Anger has always been a tool for me, a matter of propulsion to get motivated. I do not know any other way. I somehow know in my heart that I would not even exist without it. Each according to our gifts I guess.

I have mentioned this many times in writing that I have an associative memory. Things that I see and hear that have nothing to do with things in my life actually hold pockets of memory of my life. It would also seem that there is no expiration date on said pockets of seemingly lost memories.

When we leave the house, we put the TV on for the dog, she is more calm if she cannot hear every noise outside while we are gone. We used to do YouTube but it will time out after a while. Roku Live will play indefinitely. So we have been putting on Little House on the Prairie for her. Something happened to the whole Little House-watching world sometime around the year 2000. We forgot about all of the fun, warm, and wholesome moments the nine seasons of this show gave us and only remembered the horrible personal disasters that were also laced into the show. Alice Garvey and Mary's baby dying in a fire, Laura's baby dying from illness, the plague that wiped out part of the town due to rat infestation of the food supply, and of course, Mary going blind.

Inevitably, with this show just playing in the background, it has pulled us in and we end up watching whole episodes from time to time. Some nights, instead of surfing through the disgusting lack of quality that exists in modern-day streaming, we just let Little House roll. I noticed something. I am finding that some of my personal memories are attached to scenes of that show that aired especially during the times that I was between the ages of 9 and 15. The show began in 74 and we lived in Torrington, Connecticut. Torrington was a unique small industrial city in a valley in the northwest hills of Connecticut.

Fragmented memories of my 5-year stay in the mid-1970s Torrington have drifted in and continue to do so. Sixth grade, standing in the woods behind Torringford School face to face with Michelle Deleo and her saying the line to me, "Knowing you." Instantly when I think of that point in space and time Abba suddenly shouts out at me: "Knowing me, knowing you, ah haaa, there is nothing we can do..." because my brain did that in the moment we were standing there. A couple of days ago, I did a Google Street Level drive around Torrington and looking at the backyard of the school into the woods, I can see the exact spot that happened 47 years ago.

About this virtual drive around Torrington. I see sadness and decay. Yeah, we had the Keep America Beautiful commercial with the crying Indian from 1970 telling us that we ruined everything, but let me tell you something. The houses were more beautiful, the roads and sidewalks were not crumbling, and the bridges were not falling apart. Today, despite great efforts at restoration and repurposing, there is still a sad post-apocalyptic feel to the drive.  I am sure this is not the case for someone from a later generation.

The vinyl siding revolution of the 80s and 90s took away the beautiful character of the homes built throughout the 1800s during the Industrial Revolution and placed upon them all of the architectural charm of a latex glove. I lived in 3 such homes in Torrington. We moved into the 2nd-floor apartment on James Street in 1974, Main Street in April 1976, and East Main Street in February of 1977. In April of 1979, we moved back to Bristol, never to live in Torrington again.

It is the world that was so different though. It was a world in which radio and newspapers were the pulse of everything that was happening. It is different for me than for many people in the world. As my life changed, so did my permanent geographical location. So, I do not and have not seen anyone I went to school with. It is like all of that is on a different planet for me. Even in my adult life, I have had 4 separate existences. Different places to live, different jobs, different family, different friends. 

It was on James Street that I made my first individual claim to music, to having a voice as a person. It was in the attic of Main Street on July 13, 1976, when I discovered WKBW in Buffalo, NY. It was at 541 East Main Street where I got my first job working for the landlord, sweeping hallways and sidewalks, mowing the lawn with one of the old manual push grass cutters, raking and shoveling snow, whitewashing walls, and building cement walls. The Hartford Civic Center roof collapsed while we lived there. We endured the blizzard of 78 there and also did not have a car for 2 years, and for a while, we had no refrigerator either. 

During that time, some nights the only option was from the Burger King down the road from us. I would walk down there and get our food to go. Two double cheeseburgers, two Whopper Juniors, 4 large fries, 3 medium cokes, and 1 medium rootbeer. With tax, $6.14. I knew it by heart.

There was a real coming of age period in the latter years for me hear. One night in the fall of 78 I discovered my attraction to alcohol, as well as my addiction to cigarettes. When I hear Paradise By the Dashboard Light it takes me back to a crazy night back in 78.

My last spring in Torrington was 1979. Heart of Glass by Blondie was riding high on the charts as was Rod Stewart’s DaYa Think I’m Sexy. Mork and Mindy, and Saturday Night Live were top of the top. Times were changing though. By March everything that had been the way it was began to unravel. This was not a bad thing either. There were old habits that just needed to stop.

We left Torrington in a very different way than we had arrived, although our arrival was also unorthodox.

The associative memory always intrigues me. It can be such a rabbit hole. Thanks to that I can remember so many days of my life 50 years ago as if they were yesterday. Liam and Noah have this exact thing too. I think it is a gift. It helps me to understand things better, and appreciate the people in my life more fully. 

I am not sure who gave me this. I have conversations with my mother and she has a remarkable memory, I wonder sometimes if both she and my father were the perfect storm that could cause this amazing phenomenon.