When the going gets tough, we get nostalgic
So I’m reading Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin (one of my favorite authors and permanent dinner party wish list guests). Unlike her other work where her incredible details and fluid writing style truly give you the sense that she just finished a personal interview with Lincoln, Johnson or Kennedy, this recount waxes prophetic on the small town of Rockville, NY in the 50’s. All the elements of a magical childhood are there: sidewalks, knowing all the small businesses by first name, the feeling of safety that comes from knowing members in your community by first name…
“This is also the story of a girlhood in which the great religious festivals of the Catholic church and the seasonal imperatives of baseball combined to produce a passionate love of history, ceremony, and ritual. It is the story of growing up in what seemed on the surface a more innocent era until one recalls the terror of polio, the paranoia of McCarthyism reflected even in the children’s games, the obsession with A-bomb drills in school, and the ugly face of racial prejudice. It was a time whose relative tranquility contained the seeds of the turbulent decade of the sixties.”
It’s debatable whether or not the 50s were simpler, but repression and cold war psychology aside, there is something about this book that is making me devour it – and it’s the nostalgia. In a climate where even Martha is lightening up, these recent headlines have to make you want to go back to a simpler time…
- Russia Presses Into 2nd Front in Georgia
- Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells Food
