Lounger getting lost in american graffitti

[59Lark]

I must be losing it, recently was given a copy of amercian graffitti, now i have the album for twenty plus years and have seen the movie. But maybe it because my store has had the worst year in 25 years and we and the family are just barely getting by and actually we are probably slipping. I have a tv vcr on my workbench and as i am working on repairs i will run a movie and i have american graffitti for about 5 times so and i actually feel strange and i would like to take off in that edsel ranger with cindy williams character. I HAVE always been nolstaligic but its getting worst, craving to return to a time that i feel more in step with. In the documentry its states that he wished to record a era that died with the hippies. But that was my teenage years even in the eighties in our cow town we cruised friday and sat night in our old oldsmobiles and falcons and camaros. We did the strip and parked at mcdonalds and stole coil wires, always carried a spare set in my falcon. Fixing cars in drive ways and we mean engine changes even body changes once, and we used bondo and tin rivets. I remember my friend coming by with a green 1975 honda civic and showing my his new car and went down in the cellar workshop and got four brass handles and took them out and told his to screw them on the car so we could bury him in it when he died in it. We drove sixties cars and loved them. Falcons, i had 4 of them and big boats monnaco and furys and chevelles and cutlass and buick centcury no jap crap and we drank pop in glass bottle one place still carried them teds gas in drumbo and we raced cars down side roads and we drove like steve mcqueen god help us. well loungers is the harsh reality getting to me , or am i having a middle life crisis at 47 . i miss so much , mikefftopic:

 

[59Lark]

3 more movies also want to see.

also hotrod 1979. a willys potato digger coupe and a studebaker truck in this one, also the california kid 1974. and more american graffitti. I need to get these movies am really losing it severly. any fellow loungers getting this feeling also 59Lark which is a studebaker fftopic:

 

[Voodoo Kitten]

You ever seen Two Lane Blacktop? Seems like a movie you would dig too.

My mom grew up in the Modesto area in the late 50's/early 60's and said American Graffiti is spot on. My uncle was in a car club back then.

 

[Bustercat]

I remember my friend coming by with a green 1975 honda civic and showing my his new car and went down in the cellar workshop and got four brass handles and took them out and told his to screw them on the car so we could bury him in it when he died in it.

lol lol lol

 

[59Lark]

graffitti just a place to hide.

I have been thinking on this and wondering if its just my soul needs a place to hide, dealing with dark and stark realities. I find my world has gotten a lot smaller the last couple of years. The harsh reality is, we are all scared and i dont mean to go the store and get mugged for your groceries in the parking lot, i mean scared out lies ahead , etc. The future is like in the fifties which was rosey and bright. The econony, the enviroment etc, and having children which one has a handicap makes you fear it more. So yeah I know why i crave a different time, when I am out cruizing in my 59 studebaker and i have period music even the tapes of live broadcrast from that period it seems to calm the beast. Tell me loungers do i need physco treatment, threapy or just more time to watch movies and cruise.59Lark lost in the fifites today

 

[SkullCowboy]

Nothing wrong with finding a bit of escapism in something that takes you away from the big bad world and makes you comfortable. Me? It's my movie collection or a nice violent video game.

But you can't live there. Else it becomes as unhealthy as the percieved things that drive you there.

Pick something out in the world that makes you smile at least once a day.

I saw a squirrel run across the street with a tennis ball in his mouth. My granddaughter ran up to me and gave me a paper heart cutout she had made. My wife getting into a spirited argument with her best friend on the merits of one of the guys on the Bachelorette (now that was downright hysterical and my response got me sent to my room).

You might have to look, but it's out there. OUT THERE. Not in here.

 

[Undertow]

I think there are a few things happening to which I could speak, and a few that I'm not qualified to address. On one hand, we have nostalgia and on the other your current life situation. I will address the nostalgia.

We are living in an ever-changing, ever-"improving" and ever-speeding world. Moreover, you have grown up since your teen years; you have taken on increased and varied responsibilities which in turn have stolen your leisure time (it's not to say you don't enjoy what you do now, just that you're busy in different ways). I don't know if you have a wife and kids, but I assume that when you were a teenager, you were free and unhampered.

Then there is the difference of how our society is now to what it was then. Things are just different, people are different, the news is different, the politics are different. Again, I don't know how old you are, but I bet when you were a kid, there were two newspapers published in one day: the morning edition and the evening edition. You had radios to keep you busy, and FM stations where jockies played an entire album at once. I've heard stories of kids getting picked up for drunk driving and the cop pours the beer out and points them in the right direction home.

I think you probably are going through "midlife" pangs, but no more than anyone who looks back on the simplicity of past decades. In other words, I don't think you're wrong for remembering the good times, and in turn yearning for their return. It's just like losing a loved one and wishing they would return decades later. Sure, you don't want to get hung up on the old times, and make life alter decisions on a whim based on this nostalgia - but hey, that's what the Lounge is here for. We're all a little stuck, I think!

 

[59Lark]

a refuge in a crazy world yes.

I am leaning towards agreeing with a lot of what has been said, I have a wife and two girls and two dogs and two cats and two goldfish. I always wanted a second wife to round out things but the first one wont let me. I GUESS this probably is a midlife crisis but no corvettes and 20 year old blondes for me. No meeting a secret lover on the internet and no going to a massage parlour. I miss a lot of things that are no more, close to fifty years have gone by since i was born my mother is nearly 85. My high school shop teacher wife called me and she will be 90 in a week. Her husband was a scot and he was a bonny bonny lad the like of which we wont see again till heaven and he taught high school kids shop because he wanted to make a difference yet he also worked on the avro arrow. He made a difference in my life , i wouldnt have survived high school without him, colin campbell long live scotland. I have come to a cross road with my busines after nearly 30 years and this is the year that i have to turn it around or close it. So no wonder that i am thinking so much of the past and of better times. Just as long as i dont end up like that movie where the kids get sucked into the tv land lost in the land of leave it to beaver. 59Lark signing off and thank you loungerfftopic: s

 

[Mav]

I have been thinking on this and wondering if its just my soul needs a place to hide, dealing with dark and stark realities.

Just different dark and stark realities- every decade had 'em, including the 50's. Finding a temporary place for respite is fine, as long as your goal is not complete escape, and you realize that there has never really been perfection in any decade or era.
You can't escape it; you can only find a way to deal with it.

Laugh at those less fortunate than yourself.

(Kidding.)

Thank G-d that you woke up this morning.

(Not kidding.)

 

[59Lark]

amen to that .

Thank god, but for the grace of god go I , am gratefull for what i have but like most i like to moan and bitch. We went out for the afternoon in our dry weather van , i have two astro , safafari vans and one wont start if its damp or wet, so we only drive it on warm dry days and look for rain , it if starts raining dont shut it off till your home. One of the old fellas that works for me says it like owning a 57 chrysler. He knew a fella that had one and a gmc truck and if it was damp or wet the chrysler stayed in the garage. Gonna look somemore on the net and do some more research on the wolfman, if you folks look his time in mexico was something else. 59Larkfftopic:

 

[Bourbon Guy]

Sorry, man, but you have to snap out of this (BARTENDER EDIT FOR LANGUAGE!). Lots of guys have started, run, and lost businesses. Get your ego out of it. It's not you, it's just a business. If you've run it for, what did you say, 30 years, you obviously know how to do it. So let it go, get what you can out of it, and start fresh.

If you get into biographies at all, you will find that some of our past heroes went throught multiple businesses before they did what made them famous and memorable. It is that independent spirit that kept them going. And yes, they ALL got depressed when one of their enterprises failed, so don't beat yourself up about that, either. It's just part of the process.

Rely on your spouse and family for moral and spiritual support and to remind you what is really important. Beyond that, one foot in front of the other until you come out the other side. Just keep going. And get out of the basement and stop watching Graffiti. It wasn't like that anyway. Movies and TV are all fake. It was NOT like that.

Good luck.

 

[Mav]

Sorry, man, but you have to snap out of this. Lots of guys have started, run, and lost businesses. Get your ego out of it. It's not you, it's just a business. If you've run it for, what did you say, 30 years, you obviously know how to do it. So let it go, get what you can out of it, and start fresh.

If you get into biographies at all, you will find that some of our past heroes went throught multiple businesses before they did what made them famous and memorable. It is that independent spirit that kept them going. And yes, they ALL got depressed when one of their enterprises failed, so don't beat yourself up about that, either. It's just part of the process.

Rely on your spouse and family for moral and spiritual support and to remind you what is really important. Beyond that, one foot in front of the other until you come out the other side. Just keep going. And get out of the basement and stop watching Graffiti. It wasn't like that anyway. Movies and TV are all fake. It was NOT like that.

Good luck.

As a guy who had to close down a 15- year- old business a couple of years ago, that's about the best piece of advice I've heard on the subject.