Old Memories

Talk about old memories. We went to a pot luck supper and local dance last night at one of the neighboring towns. It was like stepping back in time 45 years or so.

Some of the musicians were the same, some of the people who gathered to have a good time were the same, and a lot of the songs were the same ones played at dances even when my parents were going dancing.

Having been gone from the area for so long, I recognized some faces but could not for the life of me get their names unless they introduced themselves to me again.  It's such a weird feeling to meet up with people I used to know in one of my previous lives.

I sat next to and talked with someone who recently read my book and who used to go to the same school I did when I was in grade one when the teacher was sexually abusing me.

She shared with me how my book brought up a lot of memories for her, none of them good.

She was one who got the strap often, for no valid reason, or got the pointer slammed down across her fingers when the teacher felt like unleashing some of his frustration and anger about who knows what.

In fact she showed me how her finger which is crooked and won't lay flat, has never been the same since. "You never got the strap or got hit" she said.

"No, I never did. I got something else instead. But what happened to you and what happened to me should have never happened to either one of us or whoever else that man laid a hand on in his years of teaching."

"He was a sick bastard!" she responded with visible anguish and abhorrence emanating from her eyes.

"You got that right," I said.

We left it at that and went on with our evening. That's what one has to do sometimes.

But my mind kept going as I sat and listened and observed and let my thoughts float around in this mixture of melodies, faces, toe tapping good clean fun with all age groups and not a drop of alcohol involved.

I tired to picture our teenage group who used to gather in that same Elk's hall on Friday nights. Most of us got up on the dance floor and barely ever sat down for the next 4 hours. It's a different story now.

A quick scan of the dance floor reveals a lot of white hair tops if there's even any hair at all and the people who used to dance all night long are now going for one or two fast ones then they have to sit down.

Yup some things have definitely changed, yet some things, at least in these parts, have very much remained the same.

Memories. Part of me feels like I stepped into a time warp - a very familiar yet distant world of long ago.