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I’m Big On Nostalgia, Part One

On a recent Sunday morning I attended a car “show” at our local mall. The parking lot was full of cars: classic cars, show cars, novelty cars, and even some cars that probably should have been crushed and sold for scrap metal by now but for some odd reason their owners are so attached that they thought everyone should see their precious vehicles.

That reason was probably Nostalgia, and I get it totally. I am a sucker for items and pictures and songs and foods that can instantly transport me to other times in my life.

It’s not that I am unhappy NOW, of course. There’s just something about looking backward in life while wearing the gauzy, hazy lens of time gone by that makes me swoon a little bit.

For example, I came across this dune buggy at the mall and although Jim tells me it’s actually a Mazda that was transformed into a dune buggy, the colors and the headlights made me think about 1970s Saturday morning cartoons and kid shows. I can’t remember whether Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, Electro Woman and Dyna Girl, or another of my favorite characters drove one, but this car took me back there and put a smile on my face.

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Sidenote: there’s a guy in Knoxville who drives around in a heavily decorated Wagon Queen Family Truckster in tribute to “National Lampoon’s Vacation” (he blasts “Holiday Road” while driving, too) who, as you can imagine, makes me and lots of other people very happy.

Not everybody is nostalgic; in fact I know quite a few people who don’t care about looking back at all. Which camp are you in?

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