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As I sit here listening to The Beatle’s “You Never Give Me Your Money” from the Abby Road album, my mind has wondered back in time through vivid memories of simple moments in my youth. Moments representing the simple analog bliss of being… golden light of late afternoon peeping around the edges of sunglasses long ago lost.

It was a time before the digital world began to replace the analog world that I grew up in. Cars had no computers. They were mechanical and driven by material, physical means. Computers were still a novelty in the home. They were still high tech and almost sci-fi. Hand-held video game systems didn’t exist. Arcades were where we played video games – for $.25 per game! Cellphones had only recently began to be put in cars. Even pagers were still uncommon and weren’t possessed by non-professionals. Cable TV was still relatively new and so were VCRs. MTV played music videos.

My camera still shot 35MM film back then. It took time to see the results of the snapped shutter. The reaction to light was chemical. Images were transferred from celluloid to paper — not seen instantly on a screen. Memories formed within the space of that time and the after-image later seen on paper invoked an electo-chemical analog process in our minds.

It seems that more emotion was captured in my memories in that time. Perhaps the instant digital result of everything now is too fast to allow the saturation of emotion into memories in my slower non-digital mind. Facts and figures seem to be the bulk now — cold and without the full sensory immersion that is resident in my oldest memories.

In my mind’s eye, like a color-saturated movie, memories of times long past in familiar places with old friends play behind my eyes and the musical soundtrack of my youth (in this moment, The Beatles) rings in my ears. I can almost smell the leatherette seats in my old MG.

It’s a late autumn Saturday afternoon in Dallas, TX — 1986. My MG is parked on Greenville Avenue while my friend and I talk and laugh in the speckled long shadows cast by the last leaves and branches of tall trees as the golden sunlight retreats to the horizon. The crisp autumn air feels pleasant on my skin. There is an easiness in my mood and I am young without serious cares or someplace I have to be. Sunlight gleams across the chrome bumper of my car and I’m simply happy. Simply BEING.

My mind is not yet occupied with hard realities, deadlines, finances and responsibilities. I’m 16 and the world is open in my mind. Idealism. Is this what creates the bliss? A yet-uncluttered mind has more space for peripheral information in making memories?

Paul McCartney’s bass-line and voice etch and trace the road in my mind. It’s like driving in another dimension. “Oh that magic feeling… no where to go. Oh that magic feeling… no where to go. No where to go.”

And when I bring my mind back to the now, a sort of panic feeling clutches my chest. A reaction, I suppose, to the realization that it’s all lost to time. Those spaces in time — gone and untouchable. Now and forever-more it’s only a dream that is sometimes glimpsed through the gossamer veil of memories.

I wonder, when I grow old and near the end of my days, will I find comfort in this or will I find despair? Am I living fully enough to be content with the fullness of my past and go forward into oblivion peacefully or will I long desperately to go back in time? Isn’t that, perhaps, the difference between “heaven” and “hell?”

Tags: abby road, analog world, arcades, beatle, celluloid, chemical images, chrome bumper, color film, crisp autumn air, electo, familiar places, gleams, golden sunlight, heaven, hell, late afternoon, late autumn, long shadows, memories in my mind, mtv, music videos, saturday afternoon, sci fi, screen memories, sensory immersion, sun retreats, vcrs, video game systems, vivid memories

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