New Year, Old Memories

In case you're wondering what the gizmo pictured is, it's an old fashioned slide projector.  Before digital cameras and computers we took lots of slides.  Hundreds.

Last night, being home bodies on New Year's Eve, we settled down on a couch in our game room.  The fire place was roaring, the champagne and nibbles were plentiful and the slide show began.  We had 46 years worth to watch.  Well, maybe not quite that many because as did most, we did switch to digital photography.

Sometimes I miss the old way.  Looking at photos on the computer just isn't the same as sharing with friends or family who may have shared the experience.  In this case it was my husband.

We traveled back in time to when we were first married and had our first St. Bernard.  How we loved that gentle giant and how we still miss him along with the five others who followed in his very large foot steps.  The travel log was one to envy by any ones standards.  A legacy of the country as it was those many years ago.

Then there was our foreign travel.  We covered most of the world.  London of course, then the continent.  Paris.  Bruge and Brussels, Amsterdam.  Castle Road in Germany, Heidelberg and Munich.  Kitzbuhel, Salzburg and St. Moritz in winter.  I love the Germanic countries. Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei. Australia.  Cypress. Even Damascus when it was relatively safe.

When we finished so had the evening and the year.  Hub looked at me and said, "We've led quite a life."  And so we have.  But it's all in the past now.

What had been our youthful enthusiasm for travel and exploration has been well tempered by world events.  Gone are the days when you could board a plane without being searched.  The feeling you get now is no longer carefree but cautious. And not in just certain parts of the world but everywhere. Even here at home I'm more anxious in a big city and not because I've been away from that life as long as I have but because it has changed so much.

I wonder if we'll do more traveling while our health allows or if we'll cloister ourselves in relative obscurity because it's more comfortable. I hope it's not the latter. It's not how I envisioned retirement.

With a new year there is always hope but realistically the headlines never waver.  Too bad  the mindset of the political class that rule us never seems to change no matter the circumstances.  We could all use some fresh beginnings. Will this be the year?