Oldsters
love nostalgia, if one is to judge from the shameless non-profit
funding appeals featuring music groups from 60 years ago. Nostalgia
is not a bad thing although it sounds vaguely like a medical
condition. I think what we mean by nostalgia is the reflection on a
period, a day, even an instant when things were going our way. Never
mind that the actual experiences of the era of the music appeals may
have been fraught with insecurities, broken hearts and teenage or
coed angst. Taken to this extreme, we can concoct a sappy
sentimentalism totally unmoored from reality; yet the upwelling of
images, feelings and impressions can be calming and reassuring if
they are of an affirmative nature. Let’s not dwell on
unpleasantness, I say, past or present. Taken in its literal sense,
nostalgia is a form of homesickness; that undefinable yearning for
things as they were when one had a comfort, security and
predictability in one’s home life, no matter at what age. I don’t
think growing up in a chaotic, noisy, competitive and uncertain home
can engender nostalgia but then that was not the childhood I
experienced. For me dangers were at least at arm’s length and a
caring embrace was as close as a casual glance around.
For
me the sweet anchor of at least one summer was associated with our
Tastee-Freez ice cream stand, located along the road between my home
and downtown Euphoria. It really was a stand, four-sided with a
slanting modernist roof and a great glass front soaring up and into
the heavenly future. Mr. Goober, the manager was a little round man
who wore very wide ties clipped to his always white shirt and who had
a weakness for ice cream and pretty young girls, with whom he flirted
constantly and hired exclusively. I was lucky enough to make the
grade as counter help and the summer was passing with delightful
regularity as I observed more extended tongues than a sore throat
clinic and spent considerable time cooling myself over the open chest
freezer.
It
happened that our supervisor, Miss Emily, of the dimpled smile and
cheerleading enthusiasm found herself in some biological difficulty
in July, well before the end of the season. Mr. G. turned to me as
the next in line. Was I ever flattered! The importance of the “TF”,
as everyone in the know called it, cannot be exagerrated. For my age
group it was the galactic hub around which everything revolved. This
wasn’t just because we had the best dip-top cones with sprinkles or
not. After dark it might be a deserted neon yellow beacon but only
because the gangs, groups and cliques had already met there and moved
on to wherever summer’s distilled essence (whether liquid or not)
was to be quaffed. The “TF” allowed me an entré
into a rarified popularity I might not have enjoyed otherwise. People
wanted to be my friend, wanted to know what I thought, wanted to
invite me to pool parties, wanted be around me and in short sought me
out and included me in every teenage social ritual. It was a dream
and the best summer ever.
Even
my coworkers over whom I held complete sway treated me with respect
and I daresay some affection. By the end of the season as we closed
for the last time they all came by to say goodbye. They presented me
with a stuffed polar bear with a card attached. “You’ve got a
Brrrrright future!”, it said. I remember.
Kisses,
Celeste
