It Ain’t What It Used To Be…

What makes you feel nostalgic?

Say the title. Then hear the rim-shot for the old joke.

I read today’s prompt and thought, well, I can’t answer that. I never get nostalgic for past days. They are in the past and I generally don’t find myself getting wistful over memories (even though I do turn them into podcast episodes for Audio Chimera).

For a moment I then thought, “Maybe this would be a good ChatGPT experiment. Ask it, ‘Write a 500 word blog entry about me feeling nostalgic about my past, using what you can find about me on the web.’” But while trying to refine that prompt, I had another thought:

Maybe I don’t understand what nostalgia truly is; we use words for years and then look up a definition and suddenly we realize our thinking was wrong or incomplete somehow. So I googled “nostalgia definition,” and the result was predictable. And why I used the word “wistful” in paragraph 1.

So into the shower I went, and as the hot water got my blood moving and stimulating my brain, I realized I do feel nostalgic and wistful about some things. And, if you know me, you can probably guess that those thoughts center around former students and past productions.

One of the reasons I retired at 65 and didn’t work longer is that students, on the whole, aren’t the same caliber that I had when I started. I still keep in touch with Jason and Stacey and Dave from my first teaching position at Penn State Hazleton. (I’d include Jeremy but he was never actually a student.) I’m in contact with them sporadically, Jason most often, but fondly remember my time with them, and—knowing what happened in their lives and careers after they left my campus—feel pride that they are part of my legacy as a professor.

As for the theatre productions, there are many that I’m proud of. I always mention Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis, because that was a true collaboration, with everyone supplying ideas for the show. (And I still see the number 448 everywhere, mostly as a price at WalMart—see below.) What The Butler Saw, starred Jason and Stacey and featured Dave as the drummer for The Outpatients, the band who played at intermission and who also provided sound effects during the action. And that’s where I met Jeremy, with whom I would collaborate on numerous things.

I’ll stop there. The list of students and shows could fill several blog entries; this just scratches the surface. But this step on Memory Lane reminds me that I do have many positive recollections from my career, and inspires me to continue directing with the new theatre/performance group StoryZ, so I will have more nostalgic thoughts about productions and actors starting in the New Year.