Yes, yes, I confess…I do like the Barbara Streisand song about “misty watercolor memories” even if it means my brain has rusted in the fog of time.  But that is not the kind of memory this post is about, no, not today.  There will be lots of posts today about Nov. 22, 1963 and it will likely bore to death anyone born after that date.  Deal with it, you whippersnappers!  If my generation must forever hear our elders speaking of Dec 7, 1942…or even Nov 11, 1918, YOU have to deal with our seared in sessions with history.

So, yes, the day John Kennedy died in Dallas was impressed without any softening layers of mist.  But it isn’t the only one, only the first significant one.  But before that day, a continent away, in Germany, I had at an even younger age, sat on a dark school stairwell while alarms trilled for something worse than a fire drill.  Bomb drill.  Our teacher at the head of the stairs, half in the light, had tears running down her face.  That was the one link to my experience in a Texas school two years later; my teacher cried then, too.  The same President who confronted the Cuban missile crisis was dead.

There would be other moments scorched into my brain cells.  Things that made me want to turn my head and retch.  The photo of helicopters lifting off the Embassy roof in Vietnam, for instance.  Watching a space shuttle explode into bits like a bizarre firework display.  And yes, of course, many images from September 11th, 2001.  I admit, those are still so fresh that parts of my mind still says it is a really horrible movie and that I can get up and walk out of the theater any time.  But, of course, that is not the case and the film is FAR from over.

The point of memories like this is not just an excuse to hit happy hour at your favorite watering hole.  The point is to look at what your response was…and whether it was effective.  Did it answer the problem that roiled your soul and stomach or was it a mistake?   Are there things unaddressed still?  Are you staying conscious in that horrible mind-bending moment or running to hide and escape?  And yes, how very ’60s of me to ask, but are you part of the solution or part of the problem?

Auld lang syne  isn’t just for midnight on December 31st.  It is every day for some one, some where.  We are often content to wear our hearts on our sleeves….but it is the memory burned upon our brain that should often be guiding our hearts.  Memories we sweep clean of obscuring mist and polish with pain and honesty.

And for more and better on this topic, I urge you most heartily to follow this link and read:

http://distributorcapny.blogspot.com/2008/11/cracks-in-time.html