A Nostalgia For Simpler Times

The Picture
This is another reflection picture from the car show. Behind me is an old '50's era Chevy in that aqua blue color. These cars didn't come with Blue Tooth.

The Year
The random number generator came up with 1987. Specific memories of that year are elusive. I have some files on my computer where I have typed in some hand-written notes from old notebooks and journals and scraps of paper. I only found this:

12/29/1987 (December 1987)This morning on the way to work I was thinking about how I haven’t been playing tennis or racquetball. Then I thought about the lesson I bought for The Black Tie/Tennis Shoe Auction. I couldn’t remember Jeff Moore’s first name. Other Moores. (Greg for example) kept getting in the way. Even remembered his wife, Lucy. Then other Lucy’s started popping up---Katz for example. Finally about 9:30 I called FFP, but got the answering machine. When he called back and the phone rang---Jeff sprung to mind. I knew all the time that (1) it wasn’t alliterative; and (2) it was one syllable. FFP had lunch yesterday with Dr. Ernest Sharpe. He told Forrest he was losing his memory. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m losing mine a little fast for a 39-year-old woman. 

I'm not exactly sure where I worked at that juncture. It was a time of changing jobs before I landed at my final real job in 1989. It was perhaps a company that was later subsumed by another company and then another. I remember the event in the note (it was to raise money for Women's Athletic scholarships at UT) but not the tennis lesson or whether I ever took it.  I am sort of fascinated by the description of my effort to remember the name of the UT Women's tennis coach which, of course, I don't remember trying to remember. I have to laugh, of course, at my 39-year-old fears. This 65-year-old is both troubled and secretly glad that 1987 is sort of lost in the mists of time. It is either wonderful or sad that this year and this day will be similarly lost.

The Object

I got a haircut yesterday. It's a tiny bit short and the bed head effect was weird so I wore a hat on our walk today. I bought this hat in Normandy (en français, Normandie) in 2004. We went there for the 60th anniversary of D-Day. It was unseasonably hot. I hadn't brought a cap so I bought this one. It has been worn on some hot walks around Austin in the subsequent years. So it has some layers of salt from sweat. I keep too many old hats around but I particularly like this one because it reminds me of a trip and inspires some memories. 

The Last Few Days

I played tennis yesterday and took a walk around Lady Bird Lake today and it occurs to me that I'm happiest when doing these two things. We went out last night and serendipity took us to two favorite hangouts, Bar Congress and Arro, and we enjoyed the food and drink (a bit too much of the latter) and seeing some friends who were with some people we didn't know. Enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation.

Monday we went to hear music at El Mercado on South First. Christine Albert and Jimmy Dale Gilmore. Both yesterday and Monday were last minute choices of where to go and what to do. I like that in a way. Tonight we will probably meet up with a friend who is in town to see his mom. We haven't planned for where or anything.