Below is something I wrote two years ago. This past week (August 18th) was Robert Redford's--birthday...Hard to think...he just turned eighty years old....
LA
==================================================================================
Just some thoughts:
I don’t agree with that line.
“The Way We Were” was a very successful movie in 1973 staring Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford. It is the story about two young kids who meet in college, each quite different in personality yet drawn to one another. Kate (Streisand) is the young idealistic student with strong political views who meets Hubbell (Redford). She is drawn to him because of his boyish and carefree ways. He is drawn to her because of her strong personality and convictions to change things she does not like about the times.
Some years after college they meet again. She is now working at a radio station and he was just leaving the military after serving in WWII as a Naval officer. They do marry, but it proves to be a rocky marriage as the differences in their personalities are still present; eventually they separate and divorce. Sometime later, again by chance, the two of them meet while in New York City. Hubbell is working as a TV screen writer and Kate is still active in her political views. They had a daughter and still have strong ties toward each other, but their differences are still recognizable and remain stronger than any bond they once shared. Although the differences remain, there is this special memory between them. The memory of the way things once were.
Misty water color memories of the way we were
Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another for the way we were.
Can it be that it was all so simple then or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again tell me would we? Could we?
Memories, may be beautiful and yet what’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter we remember whenever we remember the way we were.
One of the things I find interesting as I am now seventy plus years old is the remembrance of the past; even the early past. There are things from the past when I very young and especially in my teenage years that have not left my memory. I doubt they ever will. Some still almost as vivid as the time those events happened. I don’t live in the past but I often visit there.
I think painful memories and good memories both often remain, even if we say we are going to forget.
You?
Is it better to choose to forget or remember?
==================================================================================
February 5, 2014
Keep on,
Larry Adamson