28-03-2025
On nostalgia for something that never was
On nostalgia for something that never was | DAVID MURDOCK
One should never, ever Google a topic right before a deadline. If the subject is something of interest to the writer, that's a real time-killer. That's why I should never have Googled 'nostalgia for something never experienced' this morning.
I know that several foreign languages have words for that sort of nostalgia; I simply couldn't remember exactly how to spell those words. I know that scholars studying nostalgia separate it into different varieties; I simply couldn't remember what they all are. So, I Googled the subject as a jog to my memory. And, down the rabbit hole we go!
That brings up Morrison's cafeteria. (Stay with me, that's not as random as it sounds.) There was an article by Lawrence Specker on recently titled 'There's one Morrison's cafeteria left in the country, and you can find it in Alabama.' Spoiler alert: it's in Mobile, where the chain was founded.
I emailed the article to a friend, who said that he'd 'maybe' eaten at a Morrison's only once in his life. Back in the day, my mom and dad dragged me off to the one in the Gadsden Mall quite often, so I have pleasant memories of it. However, it's not a key memory of my childhood. As I replied to my friend, 'I'm nostalgic enough that I'd go eat at this one … if I were already in Mobile. Not nostalgic enough to drive down there for it.'
As I've said many, many times in this column, nostalgia is a 'tricksy' thing. Our memories of our own lives are not entirely reliable, and we tend to remember either the bad times or the good. We don't usually remember the everyday.
What has me thinking about all of these things? The fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic — as most sources date it — passed this last week. I don't really think we fully appreciate the differences between today and say, six years ago. What I'm sure of is that the younger ones among us — say those who are now graduating high school — don't at all. COVID, of course, was a society-altering event.
Eating at Morrison's as a kid was not.
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However, I sometimes don't entirely remember what 'everyday life' was like before COVID. Some places, for example, still have those 'social distancing marks' on their floors. In a few years, only the older ones of us will remember what those are, if the marks are still there.
Sometimes, though, when giving directions to people my age, I reference stores that haven't been in business for decades. Recently, I've given directions to places in Attalla that included, 'It's in the building where Southern Hardware was' and 'It's next to where Elmore's was,' for example.
I have pleasant memories of Southern Hardware and Elmore's, by the way.
And it goes much deeper, too. The other day, I saw a clip from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." The clip was from near the beginning, when Rufus shows up in the time-travelling phone booth. How many years has it been since the last phone booth was taken down? The clip from that now 36-year-old movie (!!!) was referenced by a writer about my age, so I got the joke right away. But one cannot rely upon a shared 'memory base.'
I am no longer as funny to my students as I was in the past. They just don't understand the references I make because they don't remember them. I tell classes all the time that I'm a lot funnier if they were Generation X. They chuckle politely, much as I did when professors of mine made jokes about say, "The African Queen" or "Bedtime for Bonzo."
And what historical events passed between my professors' young adulthoods and mine? Oh, my! Think of everything that happened between 1951 and 1987. And yes, I'd watched "The African Queen" by 1987, but I've still never seen "Bedtime for Bonzo" and really only know about it in reference to President Ronald Reagan.
It also bears pointing out that "The African Queen" is a movie released in 1951 made from a 1935 novel by C.S. Forester set in August 1914. Although heavily fictionalized, there are some real-life events that 'inspired' the novel.
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And there's another nest of nostalgia that I refuse to stir up ― I'd seen "The African Queen" because, somewhere along the way in high school, I became a huge fan of Humphrey Bogart and tracked down every one of his movies that I could find. Why Bogart? I have no idea whatsoever what caught my attention with him. I will say this thing, though: it hurts me just a little bit that my students have never heard of him.
Not that they haven't seen a movie starring Bogart ― that I could take. They've never heard of him. I suppose I toss that one right back at 'em. I've never heard of most of their movie stars, either, and those stars are actively making movies right now.
However, I do wonder sometimes about what these students will be nostalgic in 37 years. What will they fondly remember about 2025? What will be the everyday things they remember? Like a favorite restaurant, now gone … except in Mobile.
