“I remember I remember the house where I was born” wrote Robert Louis

Stevenson, Scottish poet and Novelist of the nineteenth century, “the little window where the sun came creeping in at morn”. Stevenson is not alone in his wistful thinking for in many hearts, there lies a longing to experience once more the joy and freedom of youth and of a time to which we can never return. The old saying, ”Youth is wasted on the young” takes on new meaning as one remembers the “things that might have been“. Preteens rarely contemplate that change is inevitable and most teens can’t wait for the changes to materialize. Few ever think that someday they may look back on those times with misty eyes and the wish for some memento of their lost youth. I invite you to join me now as I recall a time, not so long ago, yet vastly different from the fast paced world of today.

It is New Years Eve 1948, and a boy of just nine years steps outside his lamp lit home. The silence is deafening and yet he pays no attention, nor does the twinkling of a thousand stars or the brightly beaming full moon make any impression on his youthful mind. He takes in the scene of the waves lapping gently at the shore and the small fishing boats tied up at the nearby wharf, or at anchor some sixty feet from the shoreline, with the same air of indifference. To his child’s mind, this is the way things have always been and the thought that it may sometime change is to him incomprehensible. The picture that an artist can only dream of, is just an everyday occurrence to one who has known nothing else. The glow of Kerosene lamps is the only sign of life in the small community. That a new year starts tomorrow is also of little consequence. No mummers have come by tonight and his young friends have returned to their homes and to bed. Classes at the cramped classrooms of the little two room school will resume in just a few more days, and the thought brings a twinge to his midsection. He turns and walks back to the wooden two story house that he has always called home and to the cup of tea and slice of bread that has become a nightly fare. Few in the small inlet will bother to wait for the new year and he knows nothing will be any different tomorrow.

Returning to the Eve of 2009 and to a world that would have been unrecognizable to the boy of sixty years ago, I thank you my readers, for having joined me in this little reverie. My wish for you all is happy memories, a bright future, and a new year that brings happiness, health, prosperity and peace.