Spencer Dryden
The word brings up jumble of thoughts about movies,
life, society, heroes and villains. I'm a subscriber to XM satellite radio.
They have a channel dedicated to the 60's. Great stuff. Memories come floating in with each old song.
Unless you were there or study music, it's hard to appreciate how much the
Beatles changed pop music, and not necessarily for the better.
Speaking of awakening memories of the '60's, I went
to an old time burger joint recently and had a glass of liquid memory,
otherwise known as a malted milk. To someone my age, malted milk is the flavor
of youth-drive inns, hot cars, hot girls. McDonald's eliminated the flavor of malted
milk from the pallet of Americans.
All that said, I've never had a period in life that
I wanted to live over again—except for few years in the 80's—but I messed those
up as well, and besides, a gentleman never tells.
When I tell people I was in college in the late
1960's they say what a great time that must have been. It wasn't for me. First
of all, there were none of the reputed hippy-chicks ready to make love at the
drop of a roach. At least I never found them, and believe me, I looked. More
importantly, there was this ugly situation in Vietnam, waged by old men looking
to fight Hitler again and fought by young men trying to stay alive. The ruling
class expected me to go there and die for the worst foreign policy decision our
country ever made. A theory, the Domino Theory, the fucking Domino Theory, that
Vietnam was Armageddon, the place where freedom loving people would put a stop
to the spread of global communism. I managed to avoid the draft by going to
college and by luck of birth. Guys a little older than me bore the brunt of
that misadventure. So no nothing worth a re-do there.
The 70's. A terrible marriage and a couple of jobs I
hated, and hated myself for having to do them. Back to school to earn an MBA
which proved to be equally as useless as my degree in Psychology. The economy
was in the shitter then. Remember? We hemorrhaged whole industries to the
Japanese tsunami that obliterated lives and communities and lots of living wage
jobs. Who'd ever want to go back to that? Not me. Not even for disco.
Ah the 80's. Single again. Still wouldn't want to
relive those years unless I could avoid the stupid stuff.
The river flows on.
I've had the love of my life with me for 25 years
now. Our story isn't over so there's nothing to be nostalgic about, we're still
living it.
What's the uniting factor across the decades for me?
Sex. Mostly my lack of it during my most virile years, but it's a more than the
sex I didn't get, it's female allure that has always had me. I have been
captivated by female allure since I felt that first stirring in my pants at the
sight of a naked woman over fifty years ago.
So now I'm in my 60's, approaching the supposed
golden years. A quick check of my bank account says otherwise. I'm not fearful
of aging but what I'm beginning to miss is my sex drive, more specifically the
fascination with the female form and spirit. Watching the boat sail away should
be a relief. Sex has been the source of
so much misery in my life. It's not that I need the performance enhancing blue
pill and I'm not about to get sucked into that low -T thing. Decline is a
natural part of aging. I accept that. It's just that some of the color has gone from
life. A smile from a pretty girl, a shapely ass in a pair of jeans, a set of
breasts trying to burst their containment vessel—all could brighten up a day
and launch me into fantasy without an inappropriate word exchanged. It was like
walking in a beautiful flower garden. Now it's fall and the flowers have lost
their bloom. That's what I'm nostalgic for-female allure.
Let me be quick to say that vast amounts of brain
space have been freed by this transition. There's room now for lovely thoughts
and bombastic ideas. I can form more words now and sometimes even get them on
paper. I love the writer's life and hope to be able to pass the time well in
this new found adventure. I just hope that the color doesn't fade completely.
