Let’s – Bring – Back
If you’ve ever longed to take a sentimental journey to the past, you might find yourself stuck in a world that doesn’t believe in stopping the clock or praising the righteousness of simple times. For most incurable nostalgists, it’s a path to preserve the sepia-drenched past when we are drowning in the newest, latest, fastest, and disposable. No one is immune to the lure of bygone days, even though there are many advantages to living in the age of penicillin.
Yet, today’s uber-connectedness comes at a price.
Modern living is increasingly about convenience, often leaving behind the pleasures of ornamentation and ceremony. As many of us are discovering, efficiency and quality of life aren’t necessarily synonymous. New products and diversions whiz through our lives at lightning speed; as we discard older objects and occupations to make room for them, we don’t fully realize what we are giving up until it’s too late, like privacy, mystery, and elegance.
Let’s bring back hundreds of discarded objects, pastimes, curiosities, recipes, words, architectural works, and personas—some visionary, some deliciously notorious—from bygone eras that should be introduced today. Not everything is extinct, per se, but it plays a reduced role in our lives after falling out of fashion’s favor.
Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not about stopping the clock or extolling the virtues of simpler times because times have never been simple. Looking back helps us become intelligently forward-looking as well. It makes us preservation-minded, astute observers of contemporary culture, while allowing us to evaluate the traditions, heirlooms, and elements of our lifestyles and households that we want to pass on to future generations. It makes us consider why we value an object one day and forsake it on another.
Digging into the past is a simple appreciation, honoring artful living and the lives lived in an artful manner. Each of us hopes to leave a legacy of some sort when we die, yet all legacies, no matter how grand or modest, require an appreciative audience. Even the most astounding legacies can get lost in the dust of progress if they are not documented and discussed in retrospect.
There are many delights to be dusted off and enjoyed once again, so let’s rediscover some of the things that entertained, awed, scandalized, beautified, satiated, and fascinated people from eras past. Let’s bring back forgotten yet delightful, chic, helpful, curious, and otherwise commendable things from times gone by.
Voicemail feels like such a lonely dead end. It would be nice to hear a voice on the other end, even if it’s not the one you were hoping for. Like your hairdresser, a perfectly adequate substitute shrink when your man isn’t talking.
Time to take a step back in time– barefoot.
Naomi
Love love love it❣️❣️ a couple of years ago I started purging! We did the living room and dining room over. This year we did a full kitchen remodel! That gave me reason to part with many things of great sentimental value. BUT I couldn’t part with my father’s guitar pic, my mother’s hand written recipes , my grandmother’s trinket box, my “unknown “ grandfather’s passport and many other things that are probably only valuable to me! A connection to bygone days are a necessity in my world. It keeps me connected to the values I was brought up with, by the people who instilled them in me. Anyone familiar with Dolgeville in years past, will remember the Valmar Hotel, Daniel Green Shoe Factory, Lyon’s green house, the hilltop, Dopp’s Inn the Five and Dime and too many more places to mention. There’s a lot to be said about nostalgia and times gone by. You certainly have rekindled the memories that I never want to forget! “ Thanks for the memories!”