Flashback

Lately I've been slowly working on cleaning out all these storage bins I have in my basement storage area. Recently I came across one that had old life stuff in it. Stuff like my cap & gown from graduation, souveniers from my teenage years and at the bottom was a pile of pictures that I had forgotten about. They range from 1981 through somewhere into the very early 1990's. I decided that these things were kinda cool to look through and that they shouldn't be buried like that.

So now for 2 days I've been going through them and organizing them into some cheap photo albums. I keep getting sidetracked. So many memories lost have now been found. People and places I wouldn't have remembered without the photo assist. Amazing how different I look now compared to then. The cool thing is, when I look at the pics, I remember what the feeling of being that guy was like too, so it amazes me how different a person I am now also, not just how different I look.

There are pics of my graduation and my first wedding. A really small gathering for sure, maybe 10 people. It's fun to see my first wife after all this time. She was pretty cool. Pretty too. Believe it or not, her name was Bobbie. :) Sad that that relationship was doomed before it even began. We just didn't know any better. There are many, many pics from my years at the Humane Society. Geez, what a slut I tried to be. Pics of friends I made in the 80's who are still close friends. (Egghe, you really looked that young?) I even found a pic of my old Pinto and some of my 1963 Chevy Impala SS. Sweet!

The pics of all the pets I had are ridiculous! Work at the Humane Society for 6 years and see how many you accumulate. Lots of them, trust me.

Some of the most touching are of people I genuinely loved. I had a very serious relationship with someone who had a child. He was born when I was getting to know her and as we became closer, he and I became buds. From the womb until he was about 5-6, we shared time together. I screwed up that relationship. Nothing much to do with her. I was pretty much totally responsible. I hear the boy is now in college and is a biker type. I'm sure he's pretty cool. The pics remind me of some awesome fun times we shared though. I still miss him sometimes. Her too. She was a good friend before anything else.

There are also reminders of friends who are gone. One in particular that died a few years ago. We had a Thanksgiving/Christmas party one year where everyone showed up. Those photos are so funny. Priceless really since they are of a time and an innocence that is long lost. Back then the world revolved around all of us getting together, some boozing, some other partying, but mostly because we wanted to hang together. Now that friend is gone, some of the couples are no longer couples and some have moved far away. The feelings are the same though. When I look at those pictures, I still feel what it was like to be there.

Sometimes it's fun to take a trip down memory lane. All these things I've lived have combined to make me what I am today. There are some regrets along the way. We all have those. But I can't complain. I'm OK right now and those experiences have brought me here.

I sure am glad I kept all those old photos. I love looking through them again. I wrote a song back then that had this as its last line: ".....after all, we are all just products of our past". Ain't that the truth?