My brother, who lives in England, has been visiting for the past ten days.  We decided we must be getting old.  It seems a lot of our conversations, many of which ended with a good belly laugh, began …” Do you remember?”’

Not surprising, most of our memories were good ones, funny ones, about people who helped us.  The freedoms we had as kids, eccentric teachers, stories our parents told.   We laughed about Mr. Airy, a teacher who wore a little rear-view mirror on his glasses; and could whirl a blackboard duster with amazing accuracy at a misbehaving student.  Imagine that today.

We reminisced about how young we were, making our way via public transport from our town in the North to the big city of London.  Another, imagine that.

Food, always a good topic, recalled simple home grown, home prepared foods.  We never ate in a restaurant, except for the occasional fish and chips shop.  The result was  healthy kids, and a deeper respect for ‘how in the world mother did it all.’ 

Memory Lane, providing you don’t spend too much time there, is a great place to visit.  It made Jim and me remember our roots, the good times, how fortunate we were.  Today, as always, we live in a not-so-perfect world. And yet, we can almost guarantee, when your grandchildren go on Memory-Lane trips they will remember the good stuff.  That’s just how we are.

Thanks for the memories …

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