Nostalgia

I've been feeling oddly nostalgic for earlier days in my life lately. I've been remembering a number of good times and sometimes almost wishing I could go back to them. A few things I'm remembering:

1. When I was about 8 or so, I remember playing with my friend Josh across the street (who was about two years younger than me). I'd been making paper models of heroes from The Legion of Super-Heroes comic book (I remember my Lightning Lad was especially nifty, with fold-out lightning bolts attached to his arms), and creating little adventures on Josh's jungle gym.

2. Digging tunnels in the piles of snow pushed high by the snowplows during any snow-rich winters in Massachusetts.

3. Creating "hermit crab-ville" in the sand at the beach when on vacation on Cape Cod with my parents. Years later, I'd build fancy pyramids instead. In either case, I enjoyed watching my creations get destroyed by the water as the tide came in.

   I miss vacationing on Cape Cod more than I'd expected. It's a lovely place, and there's a great bike trail in the middle Cape. The whale watches from Provincetown can be fun, and there's a wealth of used book stores. There's even the occasional comic book store. Despite being built up over the years it still has its cultivated rustic atmosphere. Some year I need to make time to take a vacation there with my parents again.

4. Senior year of high school, taking a long, l-o-n-g walk with my friend Simone (who was also a couple of years behind me) in the snow. In retrospect, it seems likely that Simone had a crush on me. Although I was not unattracted to women in high school, I somehow remained entirely oblivious to a couple of girls who likely had crushes on me (the other being a girl named Leslie, who one day sat behind me on the bus and said, "So I hear you like the TV show V!" But that's another story). I feel remarkably dumb about this today, which is kind of silly since there's nothing I can do about it now.

   Simone's parents wouldn't let her have male friends over when they weren't home, which is why we went for a long walk. (This seems illogical, somehow.) Although the details of the conversation are lost to my memory now, I recall it was an unusually deep and personal discussion. One of the few women prior to college who I truly feel I was friends with.

   We didn't keep in touch much after I left for college. I hear that Simone went through some hard times after she finished college, and I don't know what happened to her. I've looked for her on the net from time to time, but she doesn't seem to have a presence on it, so it seems I'm destined to remain in the dark.

5. Going to the Rathskeller - the bar and grill in the basement of the campus center at Tulane - with my college girlfriend Kathleen. We'd get drinks (not often beer, since I'm not fond of beer), listen to the music of the day (such as The Escape Club, who oddly are on the iTunes rotation at the gym at work), and I'd play the 1941 arcade game with my then-roommate Mike (who was smarter than me and a lot of fun to hang out with).

6. Walking through the University of Wisconsin Arboretum during spring - or even at the tail end of winter, when the ice on Lake Wingra was melting - in any of the years I lived in Madison.
7. The Christmas Eve in Madison that Karen and I spent the evening hanging out at the house in which she was renting a room, playing Scrabble. This was the time she wanted to spell "ziti", but I wouldn't let her because I'd never heard the word and it wasn't in her dictionary. We later decided we needed ice cream, and went out in the snow to find some. Getting off the Beltline Highway at one point my car spun out. I remember thinking, "No traction. Nothing I can really do," and just letting us spin. We spun into the grassy plain next to the off-ramp, caught out breath, and then I backed up and off we went. We got Häagen Dasz and were happy.

It's probably coincidental that my Dad just came back from his 50th (!) reunion of his high school class. Sounds like he had a great time. I can barely imagine my 50th reunion. My 15th is later this year, and Debbi and I are planning on going.

Tonight, my friend John and I went to a Taiwanese restaurant that opened down the street from Apple. It's got a weird menu: Seafood, pasta (!), soup, and an interesting assortment of entrees. John ordered a roasted (or maybe barbequed) pork knuckle dish, which was pretty yummy from the taste I had. I got a dish of lamb satay, which was fine, except for the copious quantities of fish in the side dishes (I don't like fish), none of which were particularly riveting. Overall, John liked his dish better than I liked mine, and it's not really my sort of menu (expensive, too!), but it was worth trying.

I consoled myself with some gelato by dropping by downtown Mountain View on my way home. Mmmm, ice cream.