I was reading a back issue of Preservation magazine, which is the publication of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Editor's Note, from a James Schwartz, revealed various historical places he had traveled to as a child. Here is a quote:
"When I think back on it, one person deserves all the credit: Mom. My mother had a passion for history that she probably inherited from her mother."
I smiled, because how different our mothers were - yet we both had historical sites in our childhoods!
My mother and my father were children of the Great Depression; my mother, especially, had lived through a long season of terrible trial in her teenage years that was beyond belief ... When I was raised, it was in the 60s and 70s, and my parents lives had transformed to the dreams they had growing up: a comfortable middle-class existence ...
... and that included going to places "Jeannee, you're studying about this in school!" I didn't realize it at that time, of course, being young, but for my parents, it was getting to know the country that they never had an opportunity to growing up - and how terrific is that :)
As they approached there senior years, there was one particular (male) friend of my parents that especially had one irritating trait, as far as my mother was concerned: when they would attend kids parties at various venues for holidays, this very grown adult male couldn't wait until the clowns and the Santa and etc. came out - he was more excited than the kids, sometimes!
"He's living out the childhood he never had himself," the guys wife said to my mother one time.
"Thats not the way to relive childhood," my mother snapped back.
Now, I get that, I get that .... and I suspect James Schwartz might, as well.
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