Village Squire, 1977-01, Page 34r P. S.
Where have the years gone?
BY KEITH ROULSTON
It's k startling discovery to realize you're
getting old. We seem to go along for years
not worrying about our age then suddenly
something brings it to our attention and we
start reflecting how fast the years are
flying.
The other .day I saw an article, the kind
of article the newspapers print at the end of
every year, that talked about the latest pop
music star, some guy from England. I'd
never even heard of him before. I was
suddenly, I realized, in the same position
as my parents were a dozen or so years ago
when I and my friends had been listening
to the big stars of the time and couldn't
understand that parents could be so stupid
as not to know who we were talking about. I
would now be in the same class if I talked
to the young music lovers of today. It's a
traumatic time for people of my
generation. Ours was the generation that
coined the phrase "Never trust anyone
over 30". Later this month, I'll pass that
milestone myself.
It's strange, isn't it, that you don't think
you are changing until you reach a certain
point in life and look back and realize just
how far you have come. I mean take a look
back at the things that once mattered most
in your life. The rock music star I'd never
heard of for instance. Fifteen years ago I
couldn't have imagined not knowing the
name, age and birthplace of every popular
singer. Somewhere along the way, slowly
but surely other things became more
important. The ever changing field of rock
music once such an important part , of
nearly all teenagers first lost its
importance, then became a squealing,
earnumbing foreign territory that few of us
want to have any part of. Even the records
we once bought and played with reverence,
now sound raucous. Today, when we do
listen to music, it is to a sweeter sound.
The new stars of the younger crowd come
and go and we never even know they came,
let alone that they went.
From the time I was about ten, every kid
I knew could tell you the make and model
of any car on the road. The interest in cars
grew throughout the teenage years and
though I was never a car expert, I picked
up enough of the jargon of engine
capacities, engine and body modifications
and the other paraphernalia of the teenage
car culture that was necessary just to carry
on an intelligent conversation with most of
the other young men of the period.
32, Village Squire/January 1977
Today, I could hardly tell you what kind
of car most of the vehicles on the road are,
let alone the year or model. A car today
isn't a status symbol as it was in the
teenage years. It's simply a necessity, a
very expensive necessity.
On the other hand, things become
important that once went unnoticed. Once,
for instance, a cold frosty morning was
something that was admired for its beauty.
Today, the admiration is tempered with a
thought of what that cold weather will do to
the fuel bill which seems to get higher
every month.
Time, back in those days, meant less
than today. Long hours could be spent in
contemplating a summer sunset or the
wind in the trees. Today, regretfully, there
are too many other tasks to be done to
"waste" time in such things. The loss is
mine.
The teenage years were troublesome
ones, a time of worry about where you were
going, what the future held. Today we are
too wrapped up in the future to worry for
the future in many ways is here. What we
do today will effect what happens
tomorrow and so on down the line. Now
that we have chosen the path we're going
to take for our lives, it's full steam ahead
with only a chance now and then to stop,
think and adjust our course slightly. The
• future? The future will look after itself. The
problem is to look after today.
Children are born, they are rushed to
grow, they grow fast and suddenly it is too
fast. Suddenly we wish they would slow
down as they rush toward adulthood and
take with them precious years of our lives:
years we were in such a hurry to get
through that we didn't take time to
properly enjoy. Years when we were so
busy with job and homebuilding and
gathering of material things that we didn't
gather enough of the wealth of special
loving memories.
We all have these moments, now and
then when we look back and wonder where
the time has gone. But now the thoughts go
on to today and tommorrow and yesterday
is left behind. Yesterday is left behind until
some other moment in the future when
today's future will be a yesterday and once
again we'll look back and wonder where
the years fled and survey what we've
accomplished in that time. And so it goes
at 30 and at 40 and 50 and 60 and hopefully
70. We are in the age when we look back,
and think.
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