See -- this really is the darkest time of the year. Almost all my pictures for the last couple of weeks, it seems, have been taken at night! (Or indoors.)
I took the one above at the beginning of December. I suspect that tree has a lot fewer leaves on it now.
And these people have a bright blue light on their porch. It reminds me of those '70s "black light" bulbs that would illuminate special psychedelic posters. Remember those? When I was a kid, my neighbors had a black light and I remember being told we couldn't look straight at it or it would blind us. Sounds like parental scaremongering but we believed it at the time.
Those neighbors, including my friend Theresa who died several weeks ago, always had the coolest stuff. Anything I learned about pop culture as a small child, I learned from them. They had transistor radios and we listened to "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks, and "Billy Don't Be a Hero" by Paper Lace, songs that were frightening because they were about dying which I could barely conceive of at the time. They had the Parker Brothers game "Masterpiece" which was about art, and which I then asked for (and got) for Christmas. My favorite character was "Bitsy" Rich Wong Dobrowski Keyes. They had stickers and toys and fun stuff and their house was utter chaos, while mine was cool and organized and somewhat dusty. I loved visiting them but I gotta admit I was always happy to get back to staid normalcy at the end of the day.
And here it is, a Saturday morning in 2025, fifty-one years later, and Theresa is dead and Becky is dead and I barely know where all that time went. How did it get to be the future?!
Slowly but surely, old age approaches you as you enter a stage of life where reminiscing is such a comfortable thing to do.
ReplyDeleteI was older of course when the songs you mentioned were around and while I quite liked them, I never really listened to the lyrics until I was much older. Another to note was The Night Chicago Died.
My favourite Masterpiece character was Miss? Millicent Friendly.
I remember the UV lighting in bars, and a certain brand of eye drops for sore eyes, Murine, would show up on people's faces where it had run down their cheeks. While not eye drops, I remember something I was wearing showed up under UV lights.
I've always been a nostalgic person, so reminiscing is very much my "thing" regardless of age! (But I'll probably be even worse now.) I forgot about "The Night Chicago Died," but YES -- that was definitely on their radios too! And I do remember Millicent.
DeleteUV lights in night clubs used to show up a white bra under certain clothing...had to be careful what you wore!
ReplyDeleteHa! All the more reason to install them in a nightclub, I suppose!
DeleteI remember those lights in 1970s discos and all the glowing white underwear.
ReplyDeleteYou and Frances must have gone to the same clubs!
DeleteTime is indeed a deceptive thing. The future lands here suddenly without us noticing. I feel that way too sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI just can't believe it's 2025. It seems impossible.
DeleteYellow and blue are my favourite colours, especially in combination; therefore, the title of this blog post attracted me particularly.
ReplyDeleteIn the mid-1980s when my friends and I were hitting the clubs around Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg, strobe lights were occasionally used with specific dance tracks. It made for a very particular atmosphere and can't have been good for the eyes (or the brain!), but what I remember most about it was how each and every speck of dust or fluff would stand out on clothes, making look everyone much scruffier than with "normal" light.
I am sorry for the loss of your friends. All of a sudden, the future becomes the present. And in the blink of an eye, the past.
Time goes too quickly! Yeah, you gotta wonder what effect all that crazy lighting had on our brains (especially in combination with alcohol).
Delete"How did it get to be the future?!"...Savour the days my friend, savour the days and appreciate the fact that you are in pretty good health. The green and promised Land of Retirement is beckoning and then... well we all know that one don't we?
ReplyDeleteI'm not looking beyond that!
DeleteOh, I remember those lights and posters. The lights were popular in bars for a long time. It was so weird to see people smile and discover who had implants. Often, they wouldn’t glow. It was a bizarre look. I love the reflection of the tree in the car hood and windshield. So much changes in 51 years.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's funny, about implants! I've never heard that.
DeleteBlack lights were kinda cool; I remember a neighbor kid having one.
ReplyDeleteI do love that blue house.
I remember you could buy them at Spencer Gifts in the mall.
DeleteTime seems to pick up speed as the years pass. Blink and the year has gone.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. Olga has been gone for five months already.
DeleteMy only experience with a black light was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon where I was camping out on my wooden dory traverse of the canyon. One of the baggage boat guys had a black light and shined it around camp after most of the other passengers had gone to bed. Because scorpions have shells that luminesce under a black light, I was horrified to see hundreds of them everywhere.
ReplyDeleteYeesh. Well, I guess it's good to know they're out there, but I'm not sure how much I would have slept after seeing that!
DeleteEvery day that we can put our feet on the floor is one more day in the future!
ReplyDeleteThat is true. Take each day as it comes, as my parents used to say.
DeleteThese days "yellow and blue" always makes me think of Ukraine and their flag.
ReplyDeleteI turned 75 this year and can't believe I am so old already! How time flies...
I remember hearing older people talking about how fast the time goes, and it's true -- but we can only perceive it from this end!
DeleteI love your writing in this post. Less journalistic and more philosophical. Of course you lean to the journalist side of things but you are able to bring your thoughts and your humor and your emotions into your writing and this is such a good example of that.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what you would be like if you hadn't had that house to visit and the kids there you got to play with. It is SO good for children to be able to see that others do not necessarily live like their family does, talk or think like their family does. EAT like their family does. Expect the same sort of order and discipline their family does. It helps us to understand others in a way we never would have.
This post really caught me. How DID it get to be the future? I guess we were too busy worrying about the present, anticipating what is to come, dwelling on the past, to realize how fast it was all going.
I agree about how good it is for kids to have friends with different backgrounds and home lives. It really helps people appreciate how much leeway we all have in life, and to appreciate our own lives even more.
DeleteWe all live in a state of perpetual blindness, in a way. The days tick past and we're tied up in our minutiae and we fail to even notice.
I'm finding I'm not all that fond of the future. I find this post poignant, and your realization about what it would be like if one didn't see a world other than that of their own family. It's very moving and thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteBut I AM fond of that wonderful opening photo. I can't imagine such golden leaves at the beginning of December, at least not this one. It cold as all get out and starting to snow (again). Well, looks like a white Christmas to me. Have a wonderful weekend.
The future IS starting to look a bit scary and daunting, isn't it? Between growing right-wing populism and nationalism, and AI, I'm not such a fan either!
DeleteI took my own yellow and blue picture yesterday.
ReplyDeleteNot only the future but dangerously close to the end of my run.
Closer for all of us! Tomorrow is never guaranteed!
DeleteSome heavy thoughts here! Time seems to just gallop. I rationalize that bad times pass fast, too. There may be a flaw in that logic, considering how subjective time is, too.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...that's an interesting thought, but our own perceptions do seem to cause bad times to linger.
DeleteIt got to be the future a lot faster than it was supposed to. I love that first shot with the tree reflected in the glass. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteThank you! It caught my eye right away, and as I took the picture I thought, "Gee, I hope there's no one sitting in that car!"
DeleteI love the deep blues of winter, especially when the moon is full. The contrast is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI think we all had childhood friends whose homes were great fun places to visit. They were very-much opposite to our own homes. My friend Dan lived down the street and was one of 5 children. His mother loved children, fed everyone that walked in, and they had pets of all kinds (dogs, cats, chickens, horses). Dan did not like coming to my house due to hard fast rules, but we had great time at his house.
Dan and his mother, father and two sisters are gone, but I have the fondest of memories of my time with them.
Every neighborhood seems to have a house like Dan's, thank goodness!
DeleteThe present is the future past. We'll look back at now some years down the road and realize how many changes have happened. A weird thought. I used to love black lights! Weren't those velour posters in style too or were they the black light ones?
ReplyDeleteYeah, the black-light art often included black fabric like velour or velvet, because it absorbed the light even more effectively and made the colorful bits pop.
DeleteHow indeed?
ReplyDeleteI do not know!
DeleteI don't know that I ever did learn anything about pop culture. I had older parents, and an angry dad. I avoided my house as best I could. My best friend had five siblings, a small house, and cheerful parents. It was an easy choice.
ReplyDeleteMy parents were slightly older too, and my mom grew up in a quite formal household, so we were not as relaxed as the neighbors.
DeleteMy family STILL plays Masterpiece!! In fact, my kids loved it so much they all have their own copies of the game! I always want to be Millicent.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear someone's still playing Masterpiece! I wonder if it's still for sale? (Just checked Amazon -- not here, anyway.)
DeleteTwo lovely photographs.
ReplyDeleteTime goes by in the blink of an eye ... make the most of every day.
All the best Jan
Always good advice!
DeleteYou need one of those cars that transcends time.
ReplyDeleteLike Marty McFly!
DeleteTime keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin...into the future....
ReplyDeleteThank you, Steve Miller Band.
DeleteI remember Masterpiece! But I don't remember actually playing it - I probably just remember the commercials for it.
ReplyDeleteI've been really thinking about the passage of time too - it seems wild that I'm 61 and that my friends are also old like me. What in the world!
What I remember most are the cards bearing images of the paintings. I learned a lot about art from that game. When I went to the Chicago Art Institute years later, it was exciting to see many of them first-hand!
DeleteTime seems to be trickling through my fingers like water lately.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what it's like.
DeleteThat first photo is lovely. I often wonder how did it suddenly get to be 40-50 years later. Did I fall asleep like Rip Van Winkle while my children grew up?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that's where the Rip Van Winkle myth came from -- someone woke up and said, "Holy cow! How can I already be 60?!"
Delete