My home town nostalgia

 

I, like many people, belong to a "my hometown" type Facebook group. It is a fun way to look at old photographs from my hometown as well as keeping tabs on the latest deaths in my age group. One thing I have noticed is that things get better in the fog of past remembrances. 

Corner stores with grouchy owners and overpriced items become the shrines to a neighborhood and a friend of all the kids who came by. We remember the ice cream sundaes but forget getting kicked out because we dallied too long in front of the Playboys. 

Intolerably long days in schools with teachers we hated become those fond days where we learned so much and gained a respect for history that we never lost. Tedious afternoons in Spanish class become temples where we learned a language that we were so happy to have when haggling over blankets in Guadalajara. 

I'm sorry but that old diner that everybody was lamenting went out of business when us baby boomers discovered MacDonald's. Fat Mikes went out of favor when they lowered the drinking age and we could go to bars. Downtown died when the malls opened. And now we are nostalgic about those haunts of yesteryear. 

Things I've learned from Firefly Lane

 

Being a man, I have learned so much from Firefly Lane. I never understood female bonding before. Yes, Beaches was a good introduction, but now I understand the process where women bond for life, through thick and thin. 

I never fully understood the sixties, but now, with the depiction of Cloud, I am cognizant about how women who live a hippie lifestyle mature into difficult women. Whenever I saw a scene that Cloud was in, I somehow knew it would end badly. I was able to predict that the scene where she sings in a fancy restaurant would end badly. 

I now understand how men in high positions in the media are manipulative and not very pleasant. I now know how women are treated in television. 

I never fully understood what divorce was, what pregnancy was, or what a miscarriage was until I saw Firefly Lane. Now, a man in his sixties, I comprehend these things in a way I never did before. 

So many things that I never learned in life I have been taught by this fine program. Watching it is like getting a doctorate in women's studies, without the time and expense. Thank you Firefly Lane.