Nostalgiaville

My brother and I got closer during the pandemic by replacing irregular visits (me to him, a two-hour drive) with frequent phone calls. I found him often in a nostalgic mood — and who better to share nostalgic memories with than a brother? In between our conversations he would text me with questions about the particulars: What was that imaginary character’s name? Where in the world prompted our song-and-dance routine, “Mi klosto la looney, mi stompo li mompo?” And which store sold those fabulous spring-action snub-nose revolvers with the white plastic bullets?

The same kind of reminiscing flourished with two old friends who came over for dinner the other night. These are folks with whom we parented thirty-plus years ago, and she also went to my high school and knew a bunch of the same kids and neighborhoods as I.

After our organ recitals and our reports about the grown kids were over, I asked both of them what they made of the Long Island (him) vs. Queens (her, me, and my wife) cultural split of our childhoods. From there we spun into street games (stoopball, potzie, skully, jump rope, ringalevio); board games (Monopoly, Careers, the Game of Life, Risk, Stratego); call-and-response games; rhythmic snap-and-slap hand games; memorable bike rides; Rockaway versus Long Beach versus Jones Beach — and how all that culture all got handed down without parental involvement.

For all four of us it was a reprise of the intense pleasures of our childhoods, and we ended the evening feeling very bonded together.

I recognize that sharing one’s nostalgia with others — what Bruce Springsteen called “boring stories of glory days” — is like reporting on a dream. It’s exciting for you, dull for them, unless they also lived in Queens and loved playing jump rope.

So I’ll make this short. As I get old, I find my most enduring and vivid memories fall into four categories:

1) Embarrassing or shameful moments (we don’t have to talk about that here).

2) Nature at its best: the full moon in the Grand Canyon; holding my 8-year-old son’s hand while walking among1,000-year-old redwoods; the bear who ran alongside my car in the Blue Ridge Mountains; humpback whales feeding off Cape Cod.

3) Physical thrills: Running down that fly ball (never thought I’d catch up to it) and catching it backhand, six inches off the ground, in center field; sled rides down the 110th Street hill; luxurious sex; the standing broad jump in junior high; utter exhaustion at the bottom of that ol’ Grand Canyon.

4) Childhood hilarity (and the hilarity of parenting little children).

What these categories share in common (except the first) is simple delight in being alive.

Here’s a song I wrote for my nostalgic brother.

—Lawrence Bush for ALTE: Getting Old Together